Each book is a child, and one of those takes a village, so here we are.
Kind villagers this time around included: Alana Abbott, Chris Ashley, Vladimir Barash, John Chu, Anne Cross, Gillian Daniels, Amy Eastment, Tom Gladstone, Kristen Janz, Siana LaForest, Lauren Marino, and Maggie Ronald. Steve Sunu and Sarah Gillig Sunu demonstrated surprising generosity and forbearance when a long-absent friend spent much of his visit to their home pacing its halls muttering to himself about people who don’t quite exist.
Stef Fisher and Anna Pinkert also contributed in a critical way, by stepping in to help my wife and me win a charity auction for which the prize was a sixty-day unlimited supply of coffee from Three Little Figs in Somerville, Massachusetts. The management of 3LF no doubt expected the coffee to go to an attorney. Its possession by a full-time novelist may have impacted their profit margins slightly during Last First Snow’s completion, for which my apologies.
Thanks also to my editors, David Hartwell and Marco Palmieri, for guidance, hand-holding, and the occasional, ah, let’s say “gentle nudge.” Irene Gallo and Chris McGrath continue to offer up the best covers anyone could ask for. Ardi Alspach, publicist, rocks—as does Patty Garcia, but she knows that already. My agent, Bob Diforio, presides over enormous conceptual battlements I’m relieved I don’t have to defend.
Tom and Burki Gladstone, and Bob and Sally Neely, blood- and law-parents, remain surprisingly supportive of my strange career choices.
And Stephanie is the best. A list of her qualities I value would be the length of this book again, so I’ll save Tor some ink, and sum up with: best.