Lungs Full of Noise

Acknowledgments

acknowledgments I wish to extend my deepest gratitude to Jim McCoy, Allison T. Means, Charlotte M. Wright, Karen A. Copp, and all of the readers and editors at the University of Iowa Press who gave my manuscript such careful reads and who said yes to this rather strange bird of a book. Thanks also to freelance editor Will Tyler , freelance proofreader Judy Loeven, and fiction contest judge Julie Orringer. I will be forever appreciative and changed by this honor. Special thanks to the generous editors who first published stories from this collection and whose careful edits improved my work. I could never know all the names of the first readers and editorial assistants whose careful attention allowed my stories to first reach an audience, but I am grateful for your service. I am grateful for the generosity and insight of my mentors : Barbara King from Kennedy School; Peter Bailey, Robert Cowser Jr., Mary Hussman, Natalia Singer, and Sid Sondergard at St. Lawrence; Lawrence Coates, Michael Czyzniejewski, and Wendell Mayo in Bowling Green; and Jim Braziel, Brock Clarke, Michael Griffith, Nicola Mason, Patrick O’Keeffe, and Leah Stewart in Cincinnati, who helped shape my aesthetic and these stories and whose writing, talent, and hard work have been inspirational. For your friendship, insight, and support, special thanks to Derek Hall, Corey Murray, and Jenny Williamson at St. Lawrence ; Sherita Armstrong-Guida, Mark Baumgartner, Karin Wraley Barbee and Matt Barbee, Jennifer Bryan, Jay Clevenger, Abigail Cloud, Lisa Crizer, Randy DeVita, Ashley Kaine, Byron Kanoti, Beth Kaufka, Rajni George, Alissia Linguar, Tasha Fouts Marren, Todd Marren, Beth Polzin, Kristin Poore, and Renee Reighart in Bowling Green; Becky Adnot-Haynes, Chelsea Bryant, Marjorie Celona, Lauren Clark, Mica Darley-Emerson, Megan Martin, Leah McCormack, Christine Muller-Held, Christian Moody, Daryl Osuch, David James Poissant, Hannah Rule, Ashlie Sandoval, B. R. Smith, Liv Stratman, Brian Trapp, Dietrik Vanderhill, Jessica Vozel, Suzanne Warren, Julia Wilcox, Ruth Williams, and Kathy Zlabek in Cincinnati; Christian Heiss and Jamie “P. J.” Bordeau. Thank you to everyone else whose names I might have missed. So many people have influenced my x i i A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s life and writing but are too numerous to count or fit in these pages. Love and thanks to my big fat Greek and Italian families, loud and colorful clans to which I am grateful to belong. Thanks especially to my mother-in-law and father-in-law Catherine Diltz and Richard McBride, who say that I am on par with Stephen King. To my grandmother, Helen Dokianos Mellas, whose shared love for books and bread will unite us always; I cannot imagine my life without you. To my sister, Elayna HulettMellas , for sharing a childhood and many imaginative worlds. To Christ Mellas, a loyal and devoted father, whose work ethic and attention to detail are in me and in these stories. And to my mother, Celeste Ferrara Mellas, whose love for her daughters is infinite and without whose devotion and faith this book would not exist. And finally to Matthew Diltz McBride, whose intelligence, patience, humor, and love have immensely enriched my life. Thank you for reading every word of this again and again. And thank you for sharing this eco-nutty, thrift-store, books-up-tothe -rafters adventure with me. Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following publications in which these stories have appeared: “Mariposa Girls” in Fugue; “Bibi from Jupiter” in StoryQuarterly, reprinted in Lightspeed Magazine and in The Lightspeed Year One Anthology ; “Blue Sky White” in Hayden’s Ferry Review and reprinted in Apocalypse Now: Poems and Prose from the End of Days; “Landscapes in White” in Washington Square Review; “So Much Rain” in Pank; “Beanstalk” in Crazyhorse; “Six Sisters” in Phoebe; “So Many Wings” in Prism International; “Dye Job” in The Collagist; and “opal one, opal two” in Fifty-Two Stories’ anthology Forty-Stories: New Writing from Harper Perennial. “Quiet Camp” is forthcoming in The Pinch. Lungs Full of Noise ...