First and foremost, my deepest thanks to Brett Savory and Sandra Kasturi of ChiZine Publications, and to the rest of the ChiZine crew, for one of the finest publishing experiences of my career. Thanks also to artist Erik Mohr for the beautiful cover and to Samantha Beiko for her gorgeous interpretation of the town of Parr’s Landing on the endpapers of the collector’s limited edition hardcover. To be a ChiZine author is to be part of the crème de la crème of a new vanguard of speculative fiction, as well as a member of a very special creative family.
Special thanks to my supremely patient and nurturing agent, Sam Hiyate of The Rights Factory, for his belief in my work, and his unflagging support of it.
I’m grateful to my great friend, former teacher, and former St. John’s headmaster, Fred Parr, who inculcated in me a fascination for Canadian history in the classroom when I was a teenager, and later shared with me what it was like to grow up in northern Ontario in the early ’70s, as well as some of the folklore of the region. He also read through part of this manuscript, pronounced it worth pursuing, and allowed me to name a town full of vampires after him—not a bad endorsement, all told.
Thanks to my friend, Elliot Shermet, who let me borrow his first name and physical appearance to create Elliot McKitrick (but not his character or personality, which is infinitely admirable, certainly more so than his fictive counterpart).
I was very fortunate to have had an extraordinary young writer named Stephen Michell as a research assistant on this project. I am even more fortunate that we became friends over the course of working together on Enter, Night. I look forward to reading Mr. Michell’s own novels in the future, and so will you. Remember his name—you heard it here first, which is my great honour and privilege.
My friend, author and screenwriter Robert Thomson, generously read through the manuscript of Enter, Night at every point in its evolution and offered his usual superb editorial insights, as well as talking me down from the ledge more than once. My gratitude to him for his kindness is beyond measure, as is my admiration.
I’d like to thank the powerhouse women of my writer’s group, the Bellefire Club—Sandra Kasturi, Helen Marshall, Sephera Giron, Nancy Baker, Halli Villegas, and Gemma Files, accomplished authors, all—who read part of the seventeenth-century section of the novel, offering insightful advice and encouragement.
On a purely personal note, Christopher Wirth and Barney EllisPerry are my two oldest friends, and they’ve been agitating for this book since I was using an electric typewriter, as has Werner Warga.
And Ron Oliver, my constant partner in crime—he’s the one who knows where all the bodies are buried.
Thanks to Steward Noack for always making New York feel like home to me; Thane MacPherson for his constancy; Chuck Gyles for getting the ball rolling that day in the car on the way home from Kitchener; Michael Thomas Ford and Sephera Giron always picked up the phone; and my dear friend Eliezenai Galvao kept the home fires burning during the writing of it; Mark Wheaton remains a personal hero as well as one of my most precious friends; Helen Marshall kept vigil and wielded a dexterous editorial scalpel; and Helen Oliver— my “second mum”—always seemed to know just when to call with encouragement and love. So did Tabatha Southey, who came bearing cocktails and divertissements.
Likewise, immeasurable thanks to my great friend, J. Marc Côté, for too many reasons to list here.
I’d like to acknowledge my father, Alan Rowe, and my stepmother, Sarah Doughty, a very great lady who came late into my life, but who has left an indelible impression on my heart.
I would also like to acknowledge my late mother, Helen Hardt Rowe, who bought me a paperback copy of Dracula at ten, and my first typewriter at eleven, but never told me what I could or couldn’t write on it. I think she would have been proud of Enter, Night, vampires or not.
Lastly, to Brian McDermid, my husband, who makes all things possible, and to Shaw Madson, the heart of our family—this book belongs to you, offered with my love and thanks.