THANK YOU TO the University of Arizona Creative Writing MFA for providing time, space, and community. Thank you especially to Ander Monson and Alison Hawthorne Deming, whose support and guidance have shaped my writing practice forever.
Thank you to my workshop colleagues for your early and formative feedback: Abby Dockter, Thomas Dai, Emily Maloney, Janet Towle, Peyton Prater-Stark, Clare McClane, Miranda Trimmier, and Kathryn Gougelet.
Thank you to my writing teachers from another life: Catherine Dent, Kazim Ali, and Kim Van Alkemade, who provided me endless opportunities at Ship and beyond. Special thanks to Kim, who read and offered feedback on the very first draft of this book. Your ongoing support has meant everything to me.
Thank you to my teachers at GrubStreet: Rita Zoey Chin and Jennifer De Leon.
Thank you also to Katherine Wisser and Donna Webber, who introduced me to the world of libraries and archives at Simmons College.
Thank you to my weaving teachers: Mary Walker, Jennie Slick, Lori Begay, Barbara Teller Ornelas, and Lynda Teller Pete. You have given me another language with which to speak.
Thank you to the Rona Jaffe Foundation, whose support came at a critical time in my career as a writer. Everything began that summer of 2016!
Thank you to my agents, Jessica Friedman and Alexandra Christie, for ushering my work into the world.
Thank you to the editors and publishers who have offered feedback and guidance on the work that surfaced alongside this project: the editors at Brevity, who selected my essay “Blood; Quantum” as the winner of their student contest; Margot Kahn and Kelly McMasters, who published “Annotating the First Page of the First Navajo-English Dictionary” in their anthology This Is the Place; and the editors at The New Yorker, who excerpted my work on their platform.
Thank you to Jack Jones Literary Arts for inviting me into their cohort of 2018 fellows, whose work was inspiring and invigorating. Thank you also to Natalie Diaz for providing me the opportunity to attend.
My love and thanks to my editor Nicole Counts. I would not have made it to the end of this book without you.
My love and thanks also to Marie Hathaway for editorial support on so many early drafts. I don’t feel I have the right words to thank you for your love and friendship over the years, but I hope we can sit somewhere and cry together soon.
And finally, my love and thanks to my husband, Owen, who kept me fed and watered through the last long days of this book.