I am indebted first and foremost to my co-conspirators in the MFA program at The University of Alabama (you know who you are), and in particular, to Michael Martone, Wendy Rawlings, and Kate Bernheimer, in whose classrooms many of these stories were born. I am also grateful for the encouragement of a wide array of editors, including Megan Paonessa of Flying House, Jill Adams of The Barcelona Review, Caitlin McGuire of the Berkeley Fiction Review, Christopher Heavener of Annalemma Magazine, Mike Czyzniejewski of Mid-American Review, Jill Meyers of American Short Fiction, Brenda Miller of the Bellingham Review, Ryan Ridge of Faultline, Jessica Pitchford and Suzanne Jamir of The Southeast Review, Dave Housley, Mike Ingram, Joe Killiany, Matt Kirkpatrick, and Aaron Pease of Barrelhouse, and also Jamie Vue, for scaring the typos away. To Brendan Todt – compass, sextant, navigator, and tireless reader of my work. To my peer reviewers, whose straight talk proved invaluable. To Linda Oblack and Sarah Jacobi of Indiana University Press.
