Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea: Stories

— Acknowledgments —

I don’t know how many authors walk around from childhood harboring the dream of a short fiction collection, but I need to start by thanking Small Beer Press for making this book a reality. My love for short fiction is an unseemly love, and if I started thanking all of the writers whose work inspired me, it would be a book of its own.

My wife, Zu, deserves her own acknowledgment page. She keeps my heart steady and whole.

My fiction is always better for someone pushing me to ask the next question. My deepest thanks to everyone who critiqued these and other stories, including Sherry Audette Morrow, Rep Pickard, A. C. Wise, A.T. Greenblatt, Fran Wilde, Siobhan Carroll, Karen Osborne, Richard Butner, Christopher Rowe, Kelly Link, Gavin J. Grant, Kiini Ibura Salaam, Maureen F. McHugh, Karen Joy Fowler, Molly Gloss, Ted Chiang, Meghan McCarron, Carmen Maria Machado, James Patrick Kelly, John Kessel, Andy Duncan, Jessica Reisman, Christopher Brown, Nathan Ballingrud, Matthew Kressel, E. Lily Yu, Carolyn Ives Gilman, Dale Bailey, my mother, my sisters, and everyone at the Baltimore Science Fiction Society critique circle. If I left anyone off that list, my most profound apologies.

Thank you to the original editors of these stories—everyone at Asimov’s, Uncanny, F&SF, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, and Apex—and to all the magazine and anthology editors there and elsewhere who gave my stories homes, encouraged me, traded Twitter puns, and provided edits that make me look smart. A special shout out to Sheila Williams, whose early and ongoing support and friendship mean the world to me.

Thank you to everyone who invited me to workshops and retreats for providing mental space and actual space and good beer and fantastic company.

Thank you to the Red Canoe for letting me sit in your lovely cafe for uncountable hours.

Thank you to my father for the Red Canoe gift cards that funded my second office, and for making sure that every single “year’s best” anthology and Le Guin collection was on our shelves when I was a kid.

Thank you to SFWA and Codex and the most well-hydrated Slack and my beloved Treehouse and BSFS and AN and EF and all the reading-series-runners and all the Baltimore writers and musicians for community and friendship and support.

Thank you to my writing buddy K. M. Szpara for his advice and company. If you don’t have a friend at a similar career point whose work ethic complements yours, I highly recommend it.

Thank you to all my writing and history teachers, but particularly Judith Tumin, teacher and friend.

Thank you to all my family members who are not otherwise thanked above, for unwavering support, and to all the friends who are as close as family.

Thank you to all my music friends for being patient while I do the splits over this faultline. It’s all storytelling, but the beat varies.

Thank you to my agent, Kim-Mei Kirtland, for expertly helping me to steer this ship.

Thank you to everyone who reads stories.