Riot Baby

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book, like its title character, saw a fiery birth. Formerly a swirl of disembodied phrases and feelings and half-characters, the story of Ella and Kev began to coalesce while, in Paris, I learned of the non-indictments of the police officers responsible for the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. After the revelation of the circumstances surrounding the shooting death of Laquan McDonald, I began to hear, with greater force, the stirrings of Ella’s voice and Kev’s. Each new horrifically regular death, whether upon initial police contact or later during police or carceral custody, made clearer what I wanted to say. Because while I mourned, I thought of the families left behind and how the orbit of hurt at the center of which sits each of these tragedies is spread almost beyond imagining. In a fiction genre that traffics in the impossible, I wondered how such people, such families, might find themselves situated.

What might the opposite of injustice look like?

My fearless, peerless editor at Tor.com Publishing, Ruoxi Chen, helped turn my questions and convictions into this book. Its fiercest advocate, she challenged me like I’d never been challenged before to write my way into a story that at times seemed beyond my abilities to tell. From the beginning, she saw this book, saw more of it than I could. To say that working with her has been a dream would be to indulge in criminal understatement. Our Gchats shall remain some of the most cherished and expansive conversations I’ve ever had the privilege and pleasure of having.

I must thank my agent, Noah Ballard, who kept me levelheaded and focused and who was ceaseless in his encouragement.

And I send my everlasting gratitude to Irene Gallo and Christine Foltzer for directing the creation of a cover that, to this day, renders me breathless. Jaya Miceli delivered one of the most stunning pieces of art I have ever seen in my life. I am the most fortunate author in the world to have been able to have my name on this cover.

My family, of course. For your steadfast belief in me pursuing this career, in which I am neither a doctor nor an engineer, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Finally, I must acknowledge N. K. Jemisin. Until I’d read her Broken Earth trilogy, I did not know how to write angry, the type of angry that still leaves room for love. Those books unlocked a gate. The reader in me is ever grateful.

So is the writer.