From Val
Thank you to “the guys”—Steven, Benj, and Justin—for your trust, encouragement, wit, and humor; I admire your dedication to this story, and I’m a better writer for how hard you pushed me to honor it. My editor, Farrin Jacobs, granted me this opportunity and kept me going with praise, prowess, pity, and pasta; I’ve got nothing but love and respect for how you made sure this many-tentacled beast didn’t choke all of us. My agent, Jeff Kleinman, knocked sense into me at the outset. As did Matt Schuman. I received valuable personal and technical information from Christina Gagliardo, Sanford Kinney, Dan Coughlin, Justin and Megan Kiczek, my nieces and nephews (especially Samantha Baker and Gavin Caterina), and Mike Emmich. To those battling anxiety and depression—hang in there. To Harper and Lennon—I hang in there for you. To Jill—now that I’m finished, want to hang out?
From Steven, Benj, and Justin
We would like to thank:
Lynn Ahrens, David Berlin, Laura Bonner, John Buzzetti, Jordan Carroll, Drew Cohen, Stephen Flaherty, Freddie Gershon, Michael Greif, Cait Hoyt, Joe Machota, Erin Malone, Jeff Marx, Whitney May, Stacey Mindich, Asher Paul, Marc Platt, Adam Siegel, Matt Steinberg, Jack Viertel, and the original Broadway cast of Dear Evan Hansen. We owe a special debt of gratitude to Farrin Jacobs for shepherding this book from the very beginning, and to Val Emmich for his artistry, his craft, and the incredible care he took of these characters and this story. Finally, we would like to thank the fans of the musical—your words, your music, and the stories you have shared with us are what inspired the creation of this book in the first place.
From all of us
We’d all like to thank the team at Hachette Book Group/Little, Brown Books for Young Readers for working hard every step of the way to help us get this story into the hands of readers, including but not limited to the following people: David Caplan, Jackie Engel, Shawn Foster, Jen Graham, Stef Hoffman, Sasha Illingworth, Virginia Lawther, Michael Pietsch, Kristina Pisciotta, Emilie Polster, Anna Prendella, Jessica Shoffel, Angela Taldone, and Megan Tingley.