Acknowledgements

First of all I want to thank my very best girlfriends, Sarah and Chris.  You believed in me before anyone else did and gave me the courage to believe in myself.  No one could ask for better friends in life.

 

Next I’d like to thank the ladies of ORWA: Malena for her gentle support and tutoring; Shirley, for listening to me moan and still always encouraging me; Teresa, who shared her experience with self-publishing and told me to go for it; Lucy, who pulled apart my point of view problems and showed me how to make them better; and Susan, who has been my social media and promotion guide, sitting me down and helping me to understand just what I was getting myself into.  All of you helped me to take this idea floating in my head and make it into something worthy of sharing with others.

 

Thank you to the folk at Emerging Minds for helping me to understand how therapy works and thank you to the ladies of Capital Burlesque for their eager assistance.  Any mistakes I made are my own.

 

Thank you to the ladies at Red Adept Publishing.  Lynn, for taking the time out of her busy day to explain the editing process to a rank amateur.  Alyssa, thank you for ripping my precious story apart and helping me to build it better.  I’m indebted to you for your insight and humor.  Joann, you kept warning me I would hate you but you only made me work harder to make it all right.  And to Carmen for the final polish.  Thank you for all your support.

Thank you to Glendon from Streetlight Graphics for his amazing cover.  Looking at it for the first time made me feel like a real author.  And thank you, Samianne, for your beautiful snake interstitials.

 

Thank you to Ryan Parent for his beautiful photography.  It’s not often that I like pictures of myself.

 

And thank you to my friends and family.  I’m sure you’ve all gotten tired of hearing about my dreams to write over the years but you all kept encouraging me.  It meant a lot.

 

And finally, thank you to everyone who reads this book.  The difference between a writer and an author is that someone is willing to pay for the stories an author writes.  If you buy this book, you’re making one of my dreams come true and I will always be grateful.

A final shout out to Marvel for the X-men, Avengers, Agents of SHIELD and Guardians of the Galaxy and the dozens of other storylines they’ve pulled me into over the years.  Without you, I’d have had a lot more time to write.  But been a lot more bored and uninspired.  You taught me that format doesn’t matter.  Just tell a good story and it will stand up to almost anything.