downhill after seventh grade. That was the year my English teacher, Nancy Helgath, somehow made me cool when she encouraged me to read Edgar Allan Poe to my classmates at lunch. They sat goggle-eyed as I read “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “Berenice,” and “The Raven.” But I had eyes for only one: the tall, smart girl I had a crush on—and was terrified of—Kristi Barnes.
I soon started my first novel. I would go on to become an English teacher and a writer, and marry Kristi Barnes.
This book wouldn’t have happened without my mother—for more than the obvious reason. I started reading late, and when I did, I hated it. This wasn’t helped by a teacher who shouted “Choppy sentences!” at me for my inability to read aloud smoothly in the first grade. My mom took me out of school for a year to home school me (insert social awkwardness joke here), and her dedication and patience gave me a love for reading.
Thank you to my little sisters, Christa and Elisa, who begged for bedtime stories. An enthusiastic and forgiving audience is a must for a budding teenage storyteller. Any princesses in my books are their fault.
It’s one thing to love reading; it’s another to write. My high school English teacher, Jael Prezeau, is a teacher in a million. She inspired hundreds. She’s the kind of woman who could chew you out, cheer you on, make you work harder than you’ve ever worked for a class, give you a B, and make you love it. She told me I couldn’t break the grammar rules she taught me until I was published. It was a rule up with which I could not put. She tried.
In college, I briefly considered politics. Horror. A few people turned me from disaster. One was an industrial spy I met in Oxford. On reading a story I’d written, he said, “I wish I could do what you do.” Huh? Then my best friend Nate Davis became the editor of our college literary journal and held a contest for the best short story. Wonder of wonders, I won the cash prize, and realized I’d earned slightly better than minimum wage. I was hooked. (It was better than I would do again for a long, long time.) I started a new novel, and whenever I tried to do my homework, I could count on Jon Low to come knocking on my door. “Hey, Weeks, you got another chapter for me yet?” It was irritating and flattering at once. I had no idea I was being prepared for having an editor.
I must thank the Iowa Writers Program for rejecting me. Though I still sometimes wear all black and drink lattes, they helped me decide to write the kind of books I like rather than the books I ought to like.
My debt to my wife, Kristi, cannot be overstated. Her faith kept me going. Her sacrifices awe me. Her wisdom has rescued me from many a story dead end. To get published, you have to defy overwhelming odds; to marry a woman like Kristi, you have to knock them out.
My agent Don Maass has an understanding of story that I’ve not seen rivaled. Don, you’ve been a reality check, a wise teacher, and an encourager. You make me a better writer.
Huge thanks to the amazing editorial team at Orbit. Devi, thanks for your many insights, your enthusiasm, and your guidance ushering me through an unfamiliar process. Tim, thanks for taking a chance on me. Jennifer, you were my first contact at Orbit, and I have to tell you, the fact that I’d e-mail you a question and get an answer the same morning was a big deal. Of course, then you started sending me paperwork—and then I knew I wasn’t dreaming. Alex, thanks for your brilliant Web page design, the beautiful billboards, full page scratch-and-sniff ads in the New York Times, and those nifty little cardboard display stands at Borders. They’re fab. Lauren, thank you for taking my ones and zeros and making something real. Hilary, copyeditor extraordinaire, a special thanks for two words: bollock dagger. They made the novel.
I also want to thank all the other people at Orbit and Hachette who do the real work while we artists sit in cafés wearing black, drinking lattes. I’d mention you by name, but I don’t know your names. However, I do appreciate what you do to take my words and make something out of them. So, layout people, art people