Ian Bagg, a fantastic stand-up comedian has never met me, but I was in the audience at the Comic Strip in New York City in 1999 when he joked about three lawmen unsuccessfully surrounding a house. I’ve never forgotten how clever I found that observation, and credit for that joke must go to Ian.
Thank you, Don D’Auria, my editor, for your continued faith in me, and for guiding me in the right direction with suggestions about how to improve my work.
Everyone at Samhain Publishing, from publisher Christina Brashear to the wonderful artists and copy editors, has been great to me. Let’s keep it going!
My first job out of college was to copy edit the Anderson (South Carolina) Independent-Mail. Moving from New Jersey to South Carolina, the farthest I’ve ever been away from home, was daunting, but the kindness and accepting nature of the folks in Upcountry South Carolina kept the homesickness to a minimum. I modeled Henderson after Anderson for no other reason than I was reasonably familiar with its geographical location. The rough nature of Henderson’s denizens in no way reflects the genuine goodness of the people I met in Anderson during my stay there in the late 1990s. Thank you for your hospitality and for teaching me the phrase that I still use to this day: “Do what now?”