Rock Monster
Page 31
Getting this manuscript up to speed was a long-ass four-year process, yet it would’ve been fourteen or forty without so much encouragement and guidance. Whatever talents or tenacity I brought to it alone, were not enough to get me where I thankfully ended up.
My undying gratitude belongs to every friend who saw me through the (many) darker years, despite my paucity of presence for them in return, at the time. For supporting, sound-boarding, anxiety-calming, off-the-ledge talking, and adamantly insisting on my future success until I actually managed to manifest it: Graham H., Mandy D., Mike and Betty Newman, Melvis Lara, and Howard Lenett.
For reading, advising, illuminating, and validating my journey, Nancy “Like Yoda-Only-Hotter” Eldridge, Tina Dubin, Joe Nicols, Sean Harribance, Marc Eliot, and Daryl Kinney.
For a lifetime of wind-beneath-my-wings kinda things, and the unique innate ability to keep me feeling connected and sane, my first and last tether and greatest sister ever, Sarah H.
To every twelve-step sponsor and Las Vegas Twisted Sister, who committed to paying it forward instead of taking what they needed and walking away unencumbered. Special thanks to Jessica and Toni, my personal tool kit instructors.
To Dr.’s Litner and Solieman, for their triumphant repairs and reconstruction where others had tried and failed, giving me long overdue closure—literally!—on a twenty-five-year-old, lingering, internalized wound.
To Claire Harris and everyone at Foundry Lit and Media, especially Peter McGuigan, my Top Ten dream agent (who let me query 140 others before telling me he was interested, then proceeded to make me feel legit enough to say for the first time ever, “I’m a writer” without cringing for the overreach). Thanks also, Peter, for your well of patience and calming, reassuring nature, while you found a home for my manuscript with the best publishing team I could hope for.
To the best publishing team this writer ever hoped for, Tyson Cornell, Julia Callahan, Gregory Henry, Hailie Johnson, Guy Intoci, Jake Levens, and everyone at Rare Bird. I’ve spent fifty years trying to get my authentic voice heard, and you let me do it in print, word for word. Special thanks to my editor, Alice Marsh-Elmer, without whose wisdom, vision, skill, and guidance this book would not be what it is. To have it miss the mark even a little would’ve weighed on me the rest of my life. For ensuring that didn’t happen, my gratitude is immeasurable (with incalculable misplaced commas).