Acknowledgments
Thanks go to Kevin Morgan Watson for seeing the vision and sharing a love of The Rainmakers, and to Christine Norris for her sharp editing skills. Kudos are awarded to Terri Kirby Erickson for an introduction to Kevin and assistance in getting my work on his desk. Cutting teeth with Alex Graves and The Tesbridge Siege let me know I wanted to write. Hats off to teachers who shared their love of language, art, and craft: Dave Mathews, Kay Highbarger, Betty Prohodsky, Sandy Feinstein, Troy Boucher, Dan Daniel, Gar Bethel, Albert Goldbarth, Jane Smiley, Christiana Langenberg, Joe Geha, Steve Pett, Gordon Weaver, Mark Cox, and Brian Evenson. To my comrades in arms in the writing communities at Southwestern College, Wichita State University, Iowa State University, and Oklahoma State University who read early versions of many of these stories – this one’s for you. Debts go to other readers at different stages in the project: Lonnie Busch, Ron Rash, Steve Almond, Gary Fincke, Jo Pumphrey, and Bill Byers. Appreciation is expressed for editors who encouraged and championed my work, including Lois Friesen, Jeanne Leiby, Sherwin Howard, Sarah Asmus, Anne Hicks, Mary Carroll-Hackett, and Barbara Diehl. Great gratitude and warmest thanks go to Jim and Marjorie Tiner, my parents, without whose support none of these stories would have been written, and to Tara McDonald, this collection’s first editor and mother of my children to whom this collection is dedicated, in the hope that they and their generation can make this world a better place.