The chap­ter titled “Acknowl­edg­ments” express­es the author’s grat­i­tude toward var­i­ous indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions that con­tributed to the pub­li­ca­tion and devel­op­ment of their work. The author begins by acknowl­edg­ing Grove Atlantic as a source of great luck and priv­i­lege for pub­lish­ing their book. Spe­cif­ic thanks are direct­ed to Mor­gan Entrekin for stead­fast sup­port, Judy Hot­tensen for her under­stand­ing of mid­west­ern Eng­lish and Bore­al Raven, and Deb Sea­ger for her help­ful­ness and mem­o­ry.

Elis­a­beth Schmitz, the author’s edi­tor, receives par­tic­u­lar praise for her keen insight and abil­i­ty to shape the book effec­tive­ly; the author high­lights her tal­ent for iden­ti­fy­ing core issues and nur­tur­ing a man­u­script into its final form. Addi­tion­al­ly, the author express­es admi­ra­tion for Kel­ly Winton’s art­work on the book cov­er, describ­ing it as mag­nif­i­cent.

Grat­i­tude extends to Marin Takikawa and Lucy Car­son from the Friedrich Agency, with a spe­cial men­tion of Mol­ly Friedrich for her con­cise, wit­ty approach and belief in com­pelling sto­ry­telling, traits that any writer would appre­ci­ate in an advo­cate.

Fur­ther acknowl­edg­ments are made to per­son­al con­nec­tions, includ­ing Liz for pro­vid­ing Kellan’s octo­pus, Mike for intro­duc­ing the eter­nal law of elec­tric bass, Lee for embody­ing Odysseus, and Lin for rep­re­sent­ing Homer. The author men­tions John, who built their mahogany writ­ing desk, adorned by Reed’s paint­ing of the North Wind. Final­ly, Robin is rec­og­nized for being a devot­ed read­er, not­ed for her abil­i­ty to dis­cern when a char­ac­ter goes astray with­in the nar­ra­tive.

Over­all, this chap­ter encap­su­lates the author’s appre­ci­a­tion for both pro­fes­sion­al and per­son­al influ­ences that guid­ed and sup­port­ed them through­out their writ­ing jour­ney.