The Becoming couldn’t have happened without the endless support of several people, who I feel it necessary to take the time to thank here.
Massive thank you’s go out to my parents, who tolerated me hogging the kitchen table and the couch in turns while I wrote and revised my book and for encouraging my attempts at being a writer; in addition, thank you to my younger sister Stephanie, for listening to me babble about my plot lines and giving me suggestions accordingly. And a special thank you to my older sister Amanda, not only for being born but for saving me from the fire ants when I was a baby, so I could be here to write this today.
Thank you to my best friends Janet and Jennifer for likewise listening to my ideas and for tolerating my general anti-social behavior while I worked on the book.
Thank you to my coworkers Sandra and Vonciel for their patience while I bounced story ideas off of them and for their enjoyable talks and recommendations for books and movies they thought I’d like.
Thank you to my beta readers Scott Baker, Heather Lindskold, and Michelle Haag for being the best beta readers anyone could ask for. Your hard work, insight, and help has been invaluable, and I look forward to your questions and commentary on books two and three.
Thank you to the folks at the Indie Writers Unite! facebook group for your entertaining questions, commentary, debates, and articles. Your group has proven a great way to pass the time during writing breaks, and I think it’s a group that I’m going to stick around in for quite some time.
Many, many thanks to Jacob Kier at Permuted Press for taking a chance on a new author and offering me an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. Even though I seriously thought your email was a bad April Fools’ joke, I am so glad I replied and didn’t dismiss it, because if I had, I wouldn’t be where I am today.
Thanks to Stephanie Gianopoulos for being a fantastic editor. Your help has enabled me to keep an eye out for writing problems I wasn’t even aware I had, and your commentary and questions and compliments always managed to put a smile on my face during the stressful process of editing a novel. I can only hope you’re willing to stick around for the other two books in this trilogy, because I know they’ll be that much better for it.
And lastly, thank you to Kevin Michaluk and the crew at CrackBerry.com. If it hadn’t been for your seemingly innocent question during a podcast, the story would never have taken the direction it did, and I doubt I would have ever finished it. I owe you a massive amount of gratitude, and I can only hope you enjoyed (and continue to enjoy!) the abuse I put “you” through in the process of this trilogy.