The Isle of Youth: Stories

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you:

To the people who first supported these stories: Jill Myers at American Short Fiction; Susan Burmeister-Brown and Linda Swanson-Davies at Glimmer Train; Pei-Ling Lue and Maribeth Batcha at One Teen Story; Cara Blue Adams at Southern Review; Bradford Morrow at Conjunctions; Dewitt Henry and Ladette Randolph at Ploughshares; the Julia Peterkin Award committee; the Writer’s Center.

To the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Program and the Munster Literature Centre, for helping me keep the faith.

To Spiro Arts, the Ragdale Foundation, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, for the great gift of time.

To the communities at Gettysburg College, especially Fred Leebron and Kathryn Rhett; Gilman School, especially Patrick Hastings and John Rowell; George Washington University, especially Tom Mallon; and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, especially Michael Collier and Noreen Cargill.

To Baltimore, for being the place where so much of this work got done. To the Baltimore lit gang, the best any city could hope for.

To Joe Hall and Cheryl Quimba, for lending me 3036 Guilford, where this book was finished.

To Don Lee, Elliott Holt, Mike Scalise, Nina McConigley, Jessica Anthony, Jane Delury, Shannon Derby, and Meghan Kenny, for their faith and friendship. To Karen Russell, for her luminous e-mails and support.

To those who read early versions of these stories and helped me find my way out of the forest of the first draft: Josh Weil, James Scott, Matthew Salesses.

To my agent, Katherine Fausset, for being brilliant and loyal and fearless, always with the utmost grace. Thanks as well to Stuart Waterman and everyone else at Curtis Brown.

To my editor, the genius Emily Bell, for taking a chance on me and for shepherding these stories into their final form. To everyone at FSG who helped bring this book into existence. To Nayon Cho. To Gregory Wazowicz. To anyone who did anything to help. I will be in your debt always.

To my family, immediate and extended. To my parents, Egerton and Caroline. To CJ. Every book is for you.