Thank you to the William Morris team and the Scout Press team, especially Alison Callahan, Jennifer Bergstrom, Louise Burke, Jennifer Robinson, Meagan Harris, and Nina Cordes, and to my publicist Kimberly Burns, for their crazy-hard work, collaboration, and willingness to take a chance on me.
Thank you to the institutions that have guided, educated, and supported me: Children’s Alley, Gateway Elementary, Aptos High School, UCSB, the California College of the Arts, the Carville Annex, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Blue Mountain Center, and the Aspen Writer’s Foundation. And special thanks to the teachers who have changed my life: Mary Jo and Jim Marshall, Diana Rothman, Lydia Parker, Mrs. Whitmore, Mr. Baer, Ms. Giroux, Mashey Bernstein, Michael Petracca, Tom Barbash, Daniel Alarcón, Miranda Mellis, Claire Chafee, and Cooley Windsor.
Sarah Fontaine and Melissa Seley: you have read this manuscript too many times to count, in all its iterations, year after year, and for this I am forever indebted to you. Without your two genius brains, this book would not be. And to the other friends who have read or edited all or sections of this book — Elena Schilder, Junior Clemons, Emily Jern-Miller, Dan Lichtenberg, and my many workshop and writing group mates — I appreciate you so much. Jessica Chrastil — thank you for your unflagging friendship, stellar emotional support, wacky mind, and lust for life. Carmen Winant, you were there for the birth of this and through it; you inspire me as an artist and a woman and a being and a friend. And to all my other friends who nurtured me while I trudged through this project, forgave me for missing beach days, and kept me sane with their humor and kindness — I thank the universe for you every day.
To my Bloomingdale’s family, thank you for filling my days with bad puns and big laughs.
To the authors and artists whose books and poems and sentences and words and paintings and projects have influenced and guided me, thank you for your generosity.
And last but definitely not least, I would like to thank my soon-to-be-husband, Forrest Lewinger. You are the kindest, most curious man, and by far the best listener I’ve ever met. Thank you for your patience, your ideas, and your profound love.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MOLLY PRENTISS was born and raised in Santa Cruz, California. She has been a Writer in Residence at Workspace at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Blue Mountain Center, and the Vermont Studio Center, and was chosen as an Emerging Writer Fellow by the Aspen Writers Foundation. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the California College of the Arts. She lives, writes, and walks around in Brooklyn, New York.
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