Still Here

Acknowledgments

I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to Lynn Nesbit, a super-agent and super-woman, who inspires borderline-crazy admiration in me. To Lynn’s wonderful assistant, Hannah Davey, whose very voice gives me hope and whose edits are very much appreciated.

To my fantastic editor, Alexis Washam. I still can’t believe how lucky I got with her.

To the entire terrific team at Hogarth, Lindsay Sagnette, Rachel Rokicki, Kevin Callahan, Sarah Grimm, Annsley Rosner, Kayleigh George, and Sarah Bedingfield.

To the brilliant Deborah Treisman, whose support has helped sustain me through my entire career.

To my supremely talented colleagues at Columbia’s MFA department, whose mere presence at the same program inspires me. Special thanks to Binnie Kirshenbaum, Victor LaValle, June Folley, Stacy Pies, Steven Hutkins, and Mark Mirsky for their support and encouragement.

To my amazing students, who made me discover so many unexpected aspects of writing.

To my extraordinary American professors, Nancy Miller, Louis Menand, Andre Aciman, Lawrence Weschler, Mary Ann Caws, and Elizabeth Beaujour, whose insights I still remember and shamelessly use.

To my excellent Russian linguistics professors, who taught me how speech recognition works.

To the MacDowell, Yaddo, and Ledig House residencies for providing me with such divine escapes and inspiration.

To the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the National Foundation of Jewish Culture for providing me with their invaluable support.

To all the brilliant artists and academics I befriended at residencies and panels. Especially Chloe Aridjis, Jennifer Gilmore, Olga Gershenson, Jonathan Wilson, Josip Novakovich, David Means, Mary Gaitskill, Chris Sullivan, Anya Ulinich, Kathleen Tolan, Valerie Hegarty, Rebecca Schiff, Vadym Neselovsky, Mikhail Shishkin, and my beautiful “swim team” (Shelly Silver, Meredith Maran, Kirstin Valdez Quade, and Sarah Woolner).

To Andre Yanpolsky, Stepan Pachikov, and Alex Fridlyand, who supplied me with priceless infomation about the tech and investment businesses. To the friends who gave me insights into the world of online dating.

To David Gelber for being the first person to suggest that I should try writing.

To my kids, who were patient with my questionable writer-style parenting and provided me with warmth and support. To David for his lecture on video games and the sticker of a sheep. To Stephanie for her astute literary criticism, insights into the dark workings of a teenage mind, and sounding sincere when she said that Still Here was one of the best novels she has ever read.

To my husband for being the best husband and the best literary critic ever.

And finally, to Vadym Tyemirov for coming up with the idea of the Virtual Cemetery.