The Road to the Spring: Collected Poems of Mary Austin

Acknowledments

vii Acknowledgments For permission to reprint poems from The American Rhythm (1923, 1930) and The Children Sing in the Far West (1928), I gratefully acknowledge Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. The University of Utah Press kindly gave permission to quote extensively from Mary Austin’s Southwest, edited by Chelsea Blackbird and Barney Nelson. Editors at magazines and journals whom I contacted for permission were helpful in suggesting that they no longer held copyright on Austin’s poems. This edition of Mary Austin’s poems would not have been possible without the support of the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. I was fortunate to receive two short-term fellowships from the Huntington to conduct research on the project: a one-month stay in the summer of 2002 as the Kenneth E. and Dorothy V. Hill Fellow, and a three-month stay in the summer of 2008 as an Andrew Mellon Fellow. I am grateful to Barney Nelson for supporting my applications for fellowships at the Huntington. During those four months of research, the staff members working in the Ahmanson Reading Room were always professional, courteous, and even friendly. Especially good to me were Sue Hodson, Curator of Literary Manuscripts, and Dan Lewis, Chief Curator of Manuscripts. In the early mornings before the reading room opened, Dan graciously introduced me to the birds and other wildlife in the Huntington Gardens. My home institution, Washington and Lee University, provided generous financial support for summer research and writing. The John M. Glenn Grant program and its successor, the H. F. Lenfest Grant program, have given me steady funding for thirty summers, viii and four of those summers funded work on The Road to the Spring. The Lenfest fund for publication subvention provided funds to obtain permission to republish from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. In addition, I thank my colleagues in the Department of English, especially Suzanne Keen, for their belief in the project. Suzanne’s deep response to my public reading of Austin’s poems on campus meant more to me than I can easily say. Special thanks go to my former student Eric Gehman, who created the index. Editorial support from the staff at Syracuse University Press, especially Jennika Baines, was superb. For expertise and sharp eyes in copyediting the manuscript, my thanks to Jessica LeTourneur. Friends from the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) have given me abiding encouragement and longterm support. Among many others, John Tallmadge and Michael Branch deserve special mention for their nearly stone-blind belief in my work. Finally, I thank my wife, Julianne Lutz Warren, an inspiration in her conscientious intellectual passion. She, my heart’s friend! ...