• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 567 0

before hearing or seeing it. I felt it in my feet. There will be dances for my children, I told myself. I gathered myself and pinched the corners of my eyes with my gloved fingers. Then I straightened my shoulders as best I could and looked west, a trail of black smoke starting to show in the gray sky.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Few people write a novel alone. I certainly didn’t.

I am indebted to Judithe Little, Julie C. Kemper, Lloyd E. Elliott, Pam Barton, Laura Siller, Lois F. Stark, and Bryan Jamison for their careful readings, meaningful suggestions, and for pushing me to do better; to Marianne Mills with the U.S. National Park Service for granting me a writing residency at the Badlands National Park; to the staff and instructors at Houston’s Inprint, Salt Lake City’s Writers @ Work, and San Antonio’s Gemini Ink for their belief in writers; and to the Sewanee Writers’ Conference for its community of writers.

I am grateful to Margaret Halton for her support and counsel and to all the people at Viking who worked so hard to make this book shine. And last, my heartfelt thanks go to John Siciliano, my savvy editor, whose guidance and enthusiasm were invaluable.