It takes a village to raise a child. It takes a multigenerational nation to publish a first book at the age of fifty-seven.
I am grateful to the writers who helped shape these essays from an embryonic stage: Ralph Bowden, Maria Browning, Susannah Felts, Carrington Fox, Faye Jones, Susan McDonald, Mary Laura Philpott, and Chris Scott. Extra thanks to Maria, who read the whole book—twice—while it was still trying to become a book.
I am unendingly thankful for the writers at Chapter 16 and for the Tennessee authors, librarians, and independent booksellers whose work gives Chapter 16 its mission. I will never find enough words of thanks for Serenity Gerbman and Tim Henderson at Humanities Tennessee. For ten years their flexibility and unflagging support made it possible for me to be both an editor and a writer.
At The New York Times, I’m profoundly grateful to Peter Catapano, whose genius makes my words better every single week, and to Clay Risen, whose offhand remark in a conversation at the Southern Festival of Books—“Would you ever want to write about that?”—led to the first essay I wrote for both the Times and this book.
Joey McGarvey plucked an incomplete manuscript of Late Migrations out of the slushpile at Milkweed Editions and somehow saw what it could become. Her gentle guidance and brilliant editing turned a jumble of essays into an actual book. And after it finally became a book, the rest of the team at Milkweed—Meagan Bachmayer, Jordan Bascom, Shannon Blackmer, Joanna Demkiewicz, Daley Farr, Allison Haberstroh, Daniel Slager, Mary Austin Speaker, Abby Travis, and Hans Weyandt—worked unceasingly to help it find its way. Thank you, all of you.
Writing Late Migrations has brought home to me how vast the literary ecosystem truly is. I send my heartfelt thanks to Kristyn Keene Benton of ICM Partners for her expansive understanding and expertise; to Carmen Toussaint of Rivendell Writers’ Colony for building the haven where this book could grow; to Mary Grey James, who came out of retirement to help me understand the book business from a side I’d never seen before; and to Karen Hayes and everyone at Parnassus Books for creating a crucial “third place” for Nashville’s readers and writers, and for believing in this book from the very beginning.
All my life I have been wholly fortunate in teachers and mentors, especially Ruth Brittin, James Dickey, John Egerton, Sharyn Gaston, Ann Granberry, and R.T. Smith. Most of them didn’t live to read this book, but their influence can be found in every paragraph. Teachers everywhere, thank you. You are planting seeds for the ages.
In eighth grade, having exhibited no competence in middle school biology, I abandoned my plan to be a large-animal veterinarian. When I told my parents I’d decided to be a writer instead, they bought an ancient manual typewriter at a garage sale and brought it home. I wrote all my high school, college, and grad school papers on that Underwood Noiseless Portable, and probably a thousand poems, too. That’s the kind of parents I had.
It’s the kind of family I still have: part safety net and part trampoline. I am grateful to Shannon Weems Anderson and Max Weems III, the cousins who shared so much of my childhood. I am grateful to our Nashville family—the Hills, the Baileys, the Michaels, the Tarkingtons, and all the dear friends who make our entire neighborhood a home. I am grateful to my brilliant siblings, Billy Renkl and Lori Renkl, who are my constant inspiration. I am grateful to Sam Moxley, Henry Moxley, and Joe Moxley, the greatest gifts of my life. Most of all, I am grateful to Haywood Moxley, who is life itself to me.
In the end, this book is for my people. For my parents and my grandparents and my great-grandparents. For my husband and our children and, someday, for the families our children will make. For my brother and my sister. For my husband’s parents and siblings. For all our beloved nieces and nephews on both sides. If there’s anything that living in a family has taught me, it’s that we belong to one another. Outward and outward and outward, in ripples that extend in either direction, we belong to one another. And also to this green and gorgeous world.