Elizabeth Bishop. “One Art.” The Complete Poems 1926–1979. (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983) Ana Castillo. “I Ask the Impossible.” I Ask the Impossible. (Anchor Books, 2001) Sandra Cisneros. “Loose Woman.” Loose Woman. (Alfred A. Knopf, 1994)
Emily Dickinson. “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Ralph W. Franklin ed. (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998). “My Garden—like the Beach—.” The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Martha Dickinson Bianchi, Alfred Leete Hampson, eds. (Little, Brown, and Co., 1932). “Wild Nights—Wild Nights!” The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Ralph W. Franklin ed. (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998). Tell all the Truth but tell it slant.” ibid. “Her breast is fit for pearls.” The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, Thomas Johnson, ed. (Little, Brown, and Co., 1961) Mayne Ellis. “Scientists Find Universe Awash in Tiny Diamonds.” Cries of the Spirit, Marilyn Sewell, ed. (Beacon Press, 2000) Kimiko Hahn. “Wellfleet, Midsummer.” The Narrow Road to the Interior. (W.W. Norton, 2006) Kay Ryan. “Still Start.” (Poetry, May 2013)
Lucy Ives. “Poem.” (PoetryNow, 2015)
Harryette Mullen. “Elliptical.” Sleeping With the Dictionary. (University of California Press, 2002) Mary Oliver. “Wild Geese.” Dream Work. (The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986)
Adrienne Rich. “Cartographies of Silence.” The Dream of a Common Language. (W.W. Norton & Co., 2013) Izumi Shikibu. “Missing you.” Misa Sugiura, trans. The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu. (Vintage, 1990) Mariko Aratani and Jane Hirshfield, trans.
Mary K. Stillwell. “In the Morning in Morocco.” Maps and Destinations. (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2014) Alice Walker. “When You See Water.” The World Will Follow Joy. (The New Press, 2013)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
They say that writing a novel is a solitary occupation, but as I wrote mine, I was blessed with a supremely talented, dedicated, and loving support crew. Here they are:
My stalwart editor, Jen Klonsky, captained my book expertly and patiently through the process of making it into the best version of itself. Her unflagging enthusiasm kept my spirits up during my neurotic author moments, and when the waters got rough, she was right there at my side. These exclamation marks are for her: !!!!!!
Leigh Feldman, agent par excellence, literally flew in and offered to champion this book for me, and then did exactly that like a boss. Leigh is forthright, unafraid, and utterly amazing, and I couldn’t ask for a better advocate and advisor. Working with her has been a dream come true.
Leigh’s intrepid assistant, Ilana Masad, plucked me out of the slush, keeps me company on Twitter, and makes me feel like a rock star.
Catherine Wallace provided additional editorial support, and Christina MacDonald weaned me from my tendency to over-hyphenate, among other copyediting feats. I owe my beautiful cover to designers Sarah Creech and Michelle Taormina, and to artist Grace Lee. Elizabeth Ward, Sabrina Abballe, Molly Motch, and Stephanie Hoover gave this book its final push into the wide world.
Sandra Feder, Prudence Breitrose, Louise Henricksen, Viji Chary, and Alicia Grunow gave me crucial input on plot ideas, and asked all the right questions to help me develop Sana’s character. Andrea Ellickson, Vicky Guyon, Ashley Walker, and Denise Stanford pushed for more information about Sana’s childhood relationship with her father, which led me to the myth at the center of this book.
Treasured friends and gifted educators Kim Vinh and Kristin Kapasi generously opened up their classrooms and recruited some amazing students to answer my questions, review a couple of key scenes, and generally keep me honest. Deepest gratitude to Benicia Chang, Denisse Velasquez, Amelia Wheaton, Abby Wheaton, Eddie Barrera, Sabrina Villanueva Avalos, Samantha Ayala, and Lily Moncayo.
A few wise and witty young women from Mountain View High School’s Queer Straight Alliance gave up their lunch periods to sit with me and tell me about their lives and their perspectives on being lesbian teenagers in Silicon Valley.
Meredith Dodd, Chau Ho, Carrie Holmberg, and Roseann Rasul, my beloved and brilliant friends, took time out of their very busy lives to read and give me feedback on the manuscript before I sent it out to strangers.
My brother-from-another, Ophny Escalante, and my kid-mom BFF, Dina Barrios, were my Spanish language gurus. Math teacher extraordinaire Jeff Muralt designed the trigonometry problems. My niece Ellie Alberg fine-tuned my texting grammar and a few key plot details. Kumiko Morimoto and Kazuko Eames helped me dial in Sana’s parents’ Kansai dialect. Jennifer Torres and Claudia Guadalupe Martinez offered me gracious, honest feedback about Jamie and her friends; I can’t imagine this book in the world without their work. Any mistakes or culturally insensitive passages that remain are mine and mine alone.
The aforementioned reader friends were joined on the sidelines by my Princeton dad, legendary real estate investor Larry Owen (I love you more); and my Princeton uncle, the ever-gracious Michael Hudnall, and his lovely wife, Mamm.
My mother taught me how to chop vegetables and peel apples, and she poured herself into raising a stubborn American daughter; my father followed a dream to the United States, worked tirelessly to achieve it, and modeled the importance of hard work and a principled life. I owe them everything.
My brother and sister have been enthusiastic cheerleaders of my writing, but more important, they were my companions in the trenches when we were Asian kids growing up in an Anglo suburb and my role models as they each pursued atypical career paths.
My two sons endured missed exits, late pickups, and burned meals on days when the book hijacked my brain. They would have preferred stories about animals, or about gun-toting steampunk renegades, but they let me write this one. Thank you, boys. I love you.
And Tad, my sounding board, proofreader, and partner; picker-upper of my messes and shutter of my half-open drawers; finder and folder of lost loads of laundry; love of my life, thank you most of all.