Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls

Personal Acknowledgements

First and foremost, thank you to Ted Pelton and Ben Marcus—for fighting the good fight, for writing and championing innovative literature, and for helping to protect the spaces where it can flourish.

To all the Editors who selected these works for inclusion, particularly Michael Czyzniejewski, Gavin Grant, Ander Monson, Rick Moody, Danielle Pafunda, Sophia Seidner, Hugh Behm-Steinberg, and John Woods, for your ongoing support and encouragement. Thanks also to Rebecca Maslen for your incredible talent in designing this book.

To my MFA thesis director Kate Bernheimer, under whose guidance this book took shape. There are not enough thanks or words; you are a Giving Tree. If a language were created to describe you, ninety-nine percent of its words would be synonyms for generosity. Thank you for the fabulous sprouting branches.

I am deeply indebted to Joel Brouwer, Dave Hickey, Michael Martone, Joyelle McSweeney, Wendy Rawlings, Josh Russell, Douglas Unger, and Richard Wiley: incredible teachers, incredible writers, incredible people. I also wish to express deep gratitude to Glenn Schaeffer and Jon Cobain for the generous UNLV fellowships which have allowed me to continue my writing.

For my fellow workshoppers Sarah Blackman, C. Bard Cole, Tim Croft, Andrew Farkas, Jonathan Hall, Laura Hendrix, Brian Oliu, Carl Peterson, and David Welch, who edited in and outside of the classroom. I am so grateful for your time, your gifts, and your writing. Thank you especially to my travel soulmate Tara Goedjen, who is always lightning-quick to help me back up on the horse, and to Stacy Gnall, Jeremy Allen Hawkins, and Nick Parker, who gave me a home and a writing family while this manuscript was coming into being.

For Xia, when she is older. Would this book have been possible had I not gotten to dress up and laugh and shriek and paint and search for acorns between the writing? You gave me fresh and wondering eyes. Watching you discover your world was such a gift; it felt like something I should have to steal.

Thank you to Leah Bailly, Mark & Beverly Baumgartner, Jason Coley, Andrew Kiraly, Joshua Kryah, Juan Martinez, Matt Swetnam, Vu Tran, and Amber Withycombe for filling my Vegas life with riches, literary and otherwise. Thank you to Maile Chapman for being an incredible resource in every way, from proofreading to encyclopedic knowledge to kindness.

To the following writers who have been exceptionally motivational both on the page and in person: Steve Almond, Brock Clarke, Rikki Ducornet, Michael Griffith, Yiyun Li, Kelly Link, Lydia Millet, Lance Olsen, Danielle Pafunda, Stacey Richter, and Kellie Wells.

For the artists in my life who have had more of an impact on my work than they could know: Montana Atwater, Doug & Elizabeth Sargent Currier, Emily Dwyer, Walter Flowers, Ashley Hudson, Burke Miles, and the resplendent Laura Shill. To Becky Hector, co-creator of the magical worlds that I preferred to reality throughout childhood and beyond. To all My Dear Friends, both human and animal, whose names belong Here. I cherish you.

To my family, both immediate and extended, for working around my weirdness.

And to Shawn, for loving me on to the next adventure.