Erin Bales and I attended the same grad program, although weweren’t in the same cohort. However, Erin was in my very first workshop, whereI got to read ten early pages of this manuscript. I don’t even remember whatthe pages were about, but I know I liked them a lot. What I do remember is tellingher that I trusted her as a writer, and that still holds true. Throughout theread, I wasn’t always