Wild Swans

by Jessica Spotswood

  Not yet, I text back. But I will be.

  And I stand there in the driveway with Granddad, and I think it might be true.

  Acknowledgments

  Every book is a journey, but this book has changed an awful lot since the first pages I scribbled back in fall 2013, inspired by the poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay and by April Genevieve Tucholke’s Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. I set out to write my own book about family ghosts and poetry and the ocean, and while there’s no longer a ghost in Wild Swans, this draft couldn’t have existed without that one. Thank you to Sara Sargent for her tremendously helpful thoughts on that early draft.

  Thank you to my agent, Jim McCarthy, who told me that it was more than okay to try something new and urged me to follow my heart on this book. Thank you to Annette Pollert-Morgan for an edit letter full of inspiring character-driven questions; to Elizabeth Boyer and Diane Dannenfeldt for their copyedits; to Brittany Vibbert for a gorgeous cover design that is everything I dreamed of; to Jillian Rahn for the lovely interior design; to Alex Yeadon for connecting my book with readers; and to everyone else at Sourcebooks who has championed Wild Swans.

  Thank you to the wonderful staff at One More Page and Politics and Prose bookstores for being so supportive; to the Highlights Foundation for their magical Unworkshops; and to the staff at Peregrine for keeping me supplied with iced black tea while I wrote and edited this book.

  Thank you to Tiffany for being an amazing cheerleader and friend; to Lauren for brainstorming walks at Highlights; to Lindsay for encouraging line edits; and to Anna-Marie for insightful notes on Ella’s scenes. To Caroline and Robin for five-plus years of flailmails. To Miranda for answering my newbie “how do I write contemporary” questions. To Andrea, Marie, and Beth for always inspiring me to dream a little bigger.

  Connor’s heartbreak over his grams was inspired by the slow decline of my Papaw to Alzheimer’s and by my bookish Memaw, who would be thrilled to pieces that I am now a librarian and an author. I miss them both more than I can convey.

  Special thanks to my mom, who is much more of a Luisa (baking delicious cookies, growing beautiful flowers, and making me laugh) than an Erica. Thank you to all my wonderfully supportive family and friends, especially to my BFFs Jenn and Jill, who are just as smart and funny and loyal as Claire and Abby. I couldn’t let Ivy have any less.

  Most especially, thank you to my husband, who has thoroughly convinced me that bookish boys with tattoos are the best.

  About the Author

  Jessica Spotswood is the author of the Cahill Witch Chronicles (Born Wicked, Star Cursed, and Sisters’ Fate) and the editor of the feminist historical anthology A Tyranny of Petticoats. She grew up in a tiny, one-stoplight town in Pennsylvania, where she could be found swimming, playing clarinet, memorizing lines for the school play, or—most often—with her nose in a book. Now she lives in Washington, DC, where she can be found working as a children’s library associate for the DC Public Library, seeing theater with her playwright husband, or—most often—with her nose in a book. Some things never change.

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