Watering Heaven

Author Acknowledgments

In the writing of any book, particularly a short story collection, there are the people behind the story. I owe a big thanks to the wonderful editors who published my individual short stories; Daniel Casebeer at Pear Noir!; Laura Cogan and Howard Junker at ZYZZYVA; M.E. Parker, Tim Horvath, Shane Oshetski, and Meredith Doench at Camera Obscura Journal; John Gosslee at Fjords Review; Deborah Kim and Jennifer Luebbers at Indiana Review; Paul B. Roth at Bitter Oleander; Dr. Richard Peabody and Nita Congress at Gargoyle; Saul Lemerond at Sheepshead Review; Christine Lee Zilka and Sunny Woan at Kartika Review; Michael Potter at ESC!; Jonathan Jay Holley at Johnny America; Jason Jordan at decomP; Christine Stoddard at Quail Bell; Kevin O’Cuinn at Word Riot; John Berbrich at Barbaric Yawp;and Brandon Barnes at Mayo Review. Every one of these editors helped make these stories what they are and if I described all they did, that would be another volume in itself.

Special thanks has to go to my friends who I continually asked to read, edit, and re-read my stories. They were the ones who kept me going when the writing ran thin. In alphabetical order: Andrew Anderson, Bill Storkson, Daniel L., Diane Yim, Edward McAvoy, Erika Choung, Esther Yim, Geoff, Daniel, and Jana Hemphill, James Chiang, Jenny Huang, Jill and Joy Fan, Joe Dilallo and Rachel Ruderman, John Han, Keridan Elliot, Kiyomi Mizukami, Linda Young, Matt K., Michelle Barton, Mollie Boero, Neej Gore, Ofer E., Paula Tudorof, Rudy Astudillo, Steve, Yuhon Ng, and God.

I wanted to thank a few writer friends for inspiring me and challenging me. All of them are super gifted and I’m humbled by their support and their willingness to push me to be a better writer. These include E. Ragus, G. Hom, Joseph Michael Owens, Kristine Ong Muslim, Leonore Wilson, Leza Lowitz, Margaret Weis, Maria Montoro, Rio Liang, and Rosebud Ben-Oni.

Of course, no book would be complete without an amazing editor at the helm, and the staff at Signal 8 Press have been amazing. A big thanks to Cherry Lam, Justin Kowalczuk, Justin Nicholes, Shannon Young, and Marshall Moore.

Finally, I have to acknowledge my wife, Angela Binxin Xu, to whom this book is dedicated. Every one of the stories in this collection has been touched or influenced by her in some way.