ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Earlier versions of these stories, sometimes under other titles, appeared in the following magazines:
Descant: “The Late Man”
Great Stream Review: “Brutality”
The Iowa Review: “The Bigs”
New England Review: “Freeze”
Northwest Review: “Torque”
Prairie Schooner: “Beautiful Ohio” (reprinted by permission of the University of Nebraska Press; copyright 1989 University of Nebraska Press)
Shenandoah: “Glossolalia”
Short Story: “Firelight”
StoryQuarterly: “Rainier”
“Freeze” also appeared in The Pushcart Prize XIV: Best of the Small Presses, 1989-1990. “The Bigs” was reprinted in Bottom of the Ninth: Great Contemporary Baseball Stories. “Glossolalia” was included in Best American Short Stories 1991; The Pushcart Prize XVI: Best of the Small Presses, 1991-1992; and The Pushcart Book of Stories: The Best of the First 25 Years of the Pushcart Prize.
Black Maps was originally published by the University of Massachusetts Press in 1996.
I am grateful to the National Endowment for the Arts, the James A. Michener and Copernicus Society of America, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and the Arkansas Arts Council for fellowships that enabled me to write many of these stories. My thanks also to Frederick Busch, Philip Dacey, John Roder, David Wojahn, Deb Wylder, Edith Wylder, and, especially, James Hannah and Dennis Vannatta.