I remember learning in economics class years and years ago that no single person can make a pencil.
There’s a point to this, I promise.
See, the graphite has to be dug out of the ground by somebody, shipped by somebody else, and fabricated into the pencil lead by yet another entity—hundreds of people involved right there. Then someone has to design the pencil: why not put the eraser in the middle? What color should it be? Will little children refuse to stick it in the sharpener if there is a baby unicorn at the top? The eraser is mined from, oh I don’t know, an eraser mine, by seven men singing “Heigh ho, heigh ho, it’s off to work we go.” There’s a metal band around the top of the pencil, which is different from a heavy metal band in that no one loses their hearing, but still involves a lot of people. Then there’s transportation, the box the pencil goes into, marketing, and on and on. So, as it turns out, everybody on the planet is required to participate in order to manufacture a pencil.
That’s why I learned to type as early as I could—I couldn’t possibly write with all those people hanging around.
So it is with the writing of a book. When I sit down in front of the blank page, I bring with me the culmination of all my life’s experiences, and all of the people who helped contribute to those experiences. For that reason, I must first thank every human being and animal living, or who has ever lived, during my time on this earth. Oh heck, I should also thank all the plant life as well. And, well, oxygen, gravity, water …
With that out of the way, I will note that there are a number of individuals I should call out, er, individually.
First, I want to thank my editorial team: Kristin Sevick, Susan Chang, Linda Quinton, and Kathleen Doherty. There are others at Tom Doherty Associates/Forge as well, including, for example, Tom Doherty. Sarah, Lucille, Eileen, and everyone in sales and marketing—thank you for helping my books become so popular. And, of course, a special shout-out to Karen Lovell, who has been my publicist since the very beginning. Good luck to you in your future endeavors, Karen. Without each and every one of you I would have to be printing my books and carting them to the nearest bookstore for people to buy. Probably if I had tried that method I would still be working on manufacturing my first pencil.
The connective tissue between an author and the publishing world is the author’s agent. In my case, Scott Miller has been that person for me. Yes, Scott, you are my ligaments. Without you, my bones would collapse, and I would find it very difficult to throw a baseball. (I was doing okay with the pencil thing but I feel like I have sort of lost it with this connective tissue metaphor.)
I also have agents helping me with the world of show business. Sylvie Rabineau and Paul Haas, at William Morris Endeavor, thank you for nurturing my Hollywood career. I would say you are my connective tissue but I already used that one.
Sheri Kelton used to manage professional boxers and now she manages me. She keeps promising to get me a fight—I am starting to worry that I will never have a shot at the title. Meanwhile, though, she has helped steer my career away from my preferred trajectory of sloth and indifference. (I would point out that no champion boxer has ever brought this much laziness to a fight—it will be so unexpected, I would be certain to win! Or, at least, come in second.)
Whenever anyone offers me a deal, Steve Younger is the attorney I call in to work out the legalities. Steve, my wife says if I cook tonight she will clean the kitchen. What do you think? What sort of penalties can we enforce if she balks at cleaning because all I did was heat up the food that she made yesterday? (May I treat her as a hostile witness?)
I also have a criminal attorney. Thank you, Hayes Michel, for keeping me out of jail for another year! They will never catch me alive, ha ha ha. I guess actually he’s more of a “litigator,” but that sounds a lot like “ligament” and people are already sick to death of that term.
Gavin Polone, to whom this novel is dedicated, was the first person to believe that this series should be made into movies. Well, to be entirely accurate, he was the second person—my wife, mentioned elsewhere in these acknowledgments, was actually the first person to say that. At any rate, without Gavin, there would be no Cameron movies other than those by that James Cameron guy—as if he will ever amount to anything. So thank you, Gavin, for all you have done for me and for the dogs.
My crack staff has learned from me the special skill of blaming others for our problems, but Emily Bowden, my Chief of Staff, has adopted the odd policy of accepting responsibility for everything that happens with all of the working dogs here at my office. Emily, thank you for managing this sprawling, chaotic situation so that I don’t have to. Because, as we both know, I wouldn’t actually do any of it. Andrew, nice of you to join us.
Mindy Hoffbauer and Jill Enders are just two of the many people who have helped keep my fans in touch with me and each other. Thank you, everyone in the secret group, for helping spread the word that I write these dog books where the dog doesn’t die in the end. I would reveal more about the group, except that it’s a secret.
Thank you, Connection House Inc., the huge multinational corporation that designed my new websites and at various times has assisted with certain marketing projects. Your president is like a son to me.
Thank you to Carolina and Annie for allowing me to be the Godfather.
Thank you, Andy and Jody Sherwood, for your cameo appearances in my novels. I so appreciate everything you have done for my family, in particular my mother. Same goes to you, Diane and Tom Runstrom: you are rays of sunshine desperately needed in my mother’s wintery life. Okay, that sounds pretty grim but you all live in northern Michigan and I live in Los Angeles. I was just up there and, yes, it was wintery.
Thank you to my flight instructor, TJ Jordi, for introducing me to Shelby and for all you have done for the animals. Thank you, Megan Buhler for coaxing Shelby to reach for the stars. The two of you have made a lot of difference in a lot of lives. Thank you, Debbie Pearl for your vision, and Teresa Miller for sharing the cold and the really bad sandwiches to help Shelby become an Oscar-worthy actor.
Thank you, director Gail Mancuso, for loving dogs and infusing the movie A Dog’s Journey with that love. Thanks to Bonnie Judd and her team for coaxing and praising wonderful performances out of our canine actors.
Along the journey with this three-book series, I have made friends with and have been so supported by the good people at Amblin Entertainment and Universal Pictures. There are far too many to name here—moviemaking and marketing takes a village. And thank you, Wei Zhang, Jason Lin, and Shujin Lan of Alibaba, for helping to introduce my work to China—the message that dogs are thinking, feeling, caring beings has now gone global!
The people in the family I grew up with are, of course, all mentally crazy. That is a prerequisite to becoming a successful author. Aside from that, though, I have to thank them for all that they do to support my career. My sisters, Amy and Julie Cameron, force people to buy my books and drag hundreds of individuals to my movies. If they don’t cry, my sisters yell at them. My mother, Monsie, is an independent bookseller, meaning, she’s independent of any bookstore—she just sells my books to every single person that she meets. If the people do not want to buy the book, she gives it to them. It means the world to me that my family is so supportive.
My family has grown beyond that initial nucleus and so I now have people younger than I who are also solidly supporting me. Special thanks to Chelsea, James, Gordon, Sadie, Georgia, Ewan, Garrett, Eloise, Chase, Alyssa. I have never for a moment felt anything but sincere support from you except for when you were teenagers.
My family has also grown to encompass Evie Michon, who besides giving birth to some very important individuals, has also been there as sort of a top secret research department, providing me with things like magazines from the time period in which my novel Emory’s Gift is set. Thanks, Evie, and thanks also to Ted Michon and Maria Hjelm, not just family but good friends. Because of Ted and Maria we have three people who are very important to me: Jakob, Maya, and Ethan. Anyone who has read A Dog’s Purpose will recognize those names.
While I’m on that topic, I’d like to recommend that book to you—A Dog’s Purpose is the first novel in this series, and explains who Ethan is, and how Bailey comes to realize he is being reborn for a purpose. A Dog’s Journey is the second, continuing the lives of Bailey as he returns again and again to CJ, a girl and then a woman who needs a dog to help her along life’s journey. (Don’t we all?)
Finally, like the grand finale of any self-respecting fireworks show, I present to you my wife, Cathryn Michon. She is my co-screenwriter, my life partner, and the person to whom I hand every draft of my novel for her sharp editorial eye. She designed and has been running our marketing efforts for years. And she is that person I can turn to when I’m feeling lost, full of self-doubt, and blocked, or even when I’m effusively happy and creatively energetic. She’s also a female director in Hollywood, something most executives consider very inconvenient to their narrative, which claims people only want to go to movies directed by men. (As of this writing, A Dog’s Journey, directed by Gail Mancuso, is not yet in theaters, so we don’t know if audiences will want to watch the movie or if they will say, “Directed by a woman? No way I want to see that!”)
Thank you, Cathryn. You are a gift to me from God.
W. BRUCE CAMERON
Frisco, Colorado
February 2019