UNDERSTANDING MENTAL ILLNESS
Mental Health America:
mentalhealthamerica.net
National Alliance on Mental Illness:
nami.org
National Institute of Mental Health:
nimh.nih.gov
Acknowledgments
I remember knowing when I was just seven years old that I wanted to tell the world my stories, and see my own books sit on shelves in libraries and stores. It took a little over two decades for that dream to begin to come true. Two decades, and the help of a lot of incredible people. I’ll try to cover most of them below.
First, my brilliant and tireless agent, Michael Bourret, to whom I could easily write an entire tome of thanks. I don’t know how you have the energy for all that you do—clearly some part of you is made of magic. Thank you for being so kind and passionate and human, and for championing this story so hard. I truly won the agent lottery.
Thank you as well to Lauren Abramo, Erin Young, the rest of the DG&B team, and Mary Pender-Coplan at UTA—I’m thrilled to be represented by the absolute best people.
Alvina Ling, my wonderful editor, helped me shape this book into what it always wanted to be. Thank you for believing in me and my words, and for loving these characters so much.
Thanks to Kheryn Callender for being an important friend and assistant extraordinaire throughout this wild ride.
Thank you, Nikki Garcia, for so precisely and gracefully handling all those logistics and details.
And to the rest of the Little, Brown family—especially Russell Busse, Michelle Campbell, Jackie Engel, Elisabeth Ferrari, Shawn Foster, Sasha Illingworth, Jess Shoffel Maglio, Annie McDonnell, Emilie Polster, Elizabeth Rosenbaum, Carol Scatorchio, Andrea Spooner, Victoria Stapleton, Angela Taldone, Megan Tingley, Ruiko Tokunaga, Valerie Wong, Danielle Yadao, Elena Yip, and any other LBYR team members I didn’t learn of in time to include here—I’m endlessly grateful for all that you awesome people do.
Christine Ma and Rosanne Lauer were my excellent freelance copyeditor and proofreader.
The artist Gray318 and the above-mentioned Sasha Illingworth and Angela Taldone made my cover so beautiful I can’t stop staring at it.
Thanks must also be sent across the ocean to my UK editor, Samantha Swinnerton, and the rest of the fabulous team at Orion Children’s Books, including Thy Bui, Nicola Goode, Helen Hughes, Dominic Kingston, Lucy Upton, plus anyone else making magic happen for this book.
I’ve had some amazing teachers who left a permanent mark on me, and I would not be the writer I am without them. In particular I want to name: Susan (Hartmann) Nabors (fifth grade), Cindy Stone Murphy (sixth grade), Tery Solomon (eleventh grade), and Rachel DeWoskin (college). You taught me that I have what it takes. I thought of all of you so often as I was drafting and revising.
I began this novel while I was in Chuck Wachtel’s workshop during my first year of NYU’s MFA program. It was Chuck’s steadfast belief in me and in the seed of this story that made me try again and again until I got it right. Thanks, Chuck Laoshi.
The Writers Room on Broadway provided the most quiet of places to focus, and all the peanut-butter-filled pretzel nuggets I could possibly desire. I spent many hours there revising.
Here’s a group hug for the Kidlit Authors of Color, and for the Electric Eighteens, who offered much-needed cheer and commiserating.
Kim Blanck, Mia Garcia, Britt Lockhart, and Kayla Rae Whitaker were among my early readers and feedback-givers—you guys are the best.
Wang Shengfei and He Jiawei and Joyce Ge, who live on the other side of the world, kindly answered a thousand questions via WeChat as I was deciding what conventions to follow for the Pinyin.
I’m indebted to the terrifically generous Sisi Guo for the guidance and the psychologist’s perspective.
The very final draft of this book was completed during my residency at the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, the most beautiful and soul-nourishing place I’ve ever been. The fantastic Djerassi staff kept me well-fed and inspired, and even plucked a faulty smoke detector off my ceiling at two in the morning. My fellow April 2017 residents braved the trails and ticks and spiders with me—and their pep talks and fancy-dessert-making skills carried me through my last revision.
Delilah Kwong fed me wine and chocolate and other treats, and kept me buoyed with constant love and excitement.
These badass women offered camaraderie and encouragement throughout the publishing process: Renée Ahdieh, Sona Charaipotra, Preeti Chhibber, Dhonielle Clayton, Zoraida Córdova, Sarah Nicole Lemon, Kaye (aka Karuna Riazi), and Marie Rutkoski.
Tiff Liao and Anica Mrose Rissi are magical beings of light who gave me crucial sanity checks, and always told me exactly what I needed to hear at exactly the right times.
Aisha Saeed, Joanna Truman, and Anna Jarzab are razor-sharp storytelling rock stars who were kind enough to read and give extensive comments on multiple drafts. Their texts and emails boosted me up when I needed it most.
Nova Ren Suma is one hell of a mentor and the greatest cheerleader, whose friendship and generosity have been so huge to me. I’m grateful for your amazing belief in me, and for your feedback early on that dug right down into the heart of my story. Thank you for your emails full of exclamation marks, and for making me feel like all this could ever be real.
Bri Lockhart is the eponym of Leigh and Axel’s apple orchard, as well as the gin to my tonic, the Nutella to my everything, my girl gang co-captain, and one of my very first champions. Thank you for reading that super-early draft on your vacation and messaging me about it from across the Atlantic Ocean.
Special thanks to my many aunts and uncles in Taiwan who helped with pinning down the details and logistics that went into my research and, in turn, this book. And to the rest of my extended family—thank you all so much for your love and support.
I’m grateful to my own waipo, the real Yuanyang, who I made into Leigh’s grandmother, and whose incredible life journey gave me the spark to begin this novel.
To my parents, Alex Pan and Beatrice Yu-Pan, I owe more thanks than there are words in all the languages combined. Thanks, Mama, for helping me find the line by Qing Dynasty scholar Sun Xingyan that’s printed on Leigh’s box of incense. Thanks, Baba, for staying up late to talk about superstitions and Ghost Month. Thank you both, for the battery-draining phone calls, and the millions of questions you answered as I was revising. Thank you most of all for supporting my wildest dreams.
Loren Rogers—my husband, best friend, partner in life—thank you for absolutely everything. For cooking all the meals and doing all the laundry and listening to every inane thought that bubbles out. For pushing me to chase this dream life. Thank you for believing in me, and letting me hear that belief so loud and clear. Thank you for every hug, every squeeze of the hands, every laugh, every reminder of how damn lucky I am that I picked the right night to go to Milk and Cookies. You inspire me every single day.