ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

SO MANY BRILLIANT, KIND, AND THOUGHTFUL PEOPLE HAVE CONTRIBUTED to this book since I was first inspired to write it.

Thank you to Joy Neaves and Tommy Hayes, and everyone in that workshop at Warren Wilson College and my classes at the Great Smokies Writing Program who read my first pages and encouraged me to actually write the dang thing, and to apply to the MFA program at Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Thank you to my entire, enthusiastic VCFA family. What an incredible and supportive community! In particular, a thousand thanks to my advisors, Martine Leavitt, Susan Fletcher, and Rita Williams-Garcia, for teaching me so much while I got the story down—and to Julie Larios, for giving me such a fun break from it! Thank you to An Na, for being a wonderful friend and mentor after VCFA.

Thank you to my extra-special super team at VCFA, the Secret Gardeners! I love you all. A special thanks to Cordelia Jensen, for giving me so much advice and letting me peek behind the curtains of the publishing process before I was there myself. And the most grateful love and appreciation for Nora Carpenter and Rachel Hylton, my SG Asheville buddies when our time at VCFA was done. You guys were there, cheering and commiserating and beta-reading through every dang step. You both are the literal BEST.

Thank you to Mom and Dad, for letting me read all the books I wanted when I was growing up, and for thinking that everything I ever wrote was amazing. Thank you to all of my awesome friends! Thank you to G Tates, for being the best pen pal ever and not telling me I was insane when I sent you poorly written chapters composed on a typewriter by snail mail because I thought it was romantic. Special thanks to Caroline and David, for reading an early draft of the manuscript I gave you after I’d had a few cocktails (even though I was adamant about not letting any of my friends read it) and then telling me it was amazing every time I was feeling discouraged. Thank you to Hannah, for being my inside operative at Malaprops Bookstore. Thank you to Al for believing in me and my stories even when I didn’t, and for all the impassioned conversations about gender and the world and history and queerness that influenced this book.

Thank you to the French Broad Chocolate Lounge, Dobra Teahouse, and the Battery Park Book Exchange and Champagne Bar for all the sugar, caffeine, and wine it took to keep me going. Thank you to Sharyn November for your enthusiasm, and for some particularly impactful feedback. Thank you to Heather Demetrios and the Pneuma Creative community. Thank you to Raki Kopernik, for being my rad new writing group since I moved to Minneapolis!

An extra-special thank you to Linda Epstein, my passionate and enthusiastic agent, for falling in love with Mary’s story and then never giving up on her, or me. I couldn’t ask for a better advocate. And thank you for having such amazing taste, so that I’m part of the most talented and fun crew of clients ever!

Thank you to the Sky Pony team, especially Sammy Yuen for an adventurous and romantic cover that makes me squee every time I see it, and Kat Enright for that awesome scene suggestion!

And finally, thank you to Rachel Stark, my perfect, badass editor. Working with you has been a dream come true, and somehow this story has become exactly the book I wanted to write. I can never thank you enough.