Up to This Pointe (26 page)

First and always, to Melissa Sarver White. O Captain, my Captain.

Chelsea Eberly: editor, author, my unbelievable good fortune. Thank you.

Mallory Loehr, Jenna Lettice, Alison Kolani, Christine Ma, Elizabeth Tardiff, Noelle Stevenson, Deanna Meyerhoff, Anna Gjesteby, and everyone else at Random House Children's Books and Folio Literary Management. Thank you.

My Seattle homes: the Elliott Bay Book Company, Eagle Harbor Book Co., University Books, Mockingbird Books, Queen Anne Books, Third Place Books, Parkplace Books, and my very own Island Books.

My Seattle writing family: Mary Jane Beaufrand, Lish McBride, Michelle Goodman, Sierra Golden, Karen Finneyfrock, Kirby Larson, Kim Baker, Mel Barnes, Jennifer K. Mann, Tori Centanni, Stephanie Kuehnert Lewis, Anna Eklund, Tara Conklin, Dawn Simon, and Suzanne Selfors. SCBWI-WW and the staff and teachers at Hugo House, Seattle. Linda Johns: author, Seattle librarian, hero. You are all the best, most beautiful part of living here.

Caitlin White of
Bustle.com
, Sanovia of
Creatyvebooks.com
, Allie Williams (director of the Parnell Memorial Library), the San Francisco Porchlight Storytelling Series, Joseph Murchison, Sheila Hale, Vivian Bernstein, and Marlaine Figueroa Gray for reading, kindness, and inspiration.

Jenni Holm, Sarah McCarry, Beth Lisick, Arline Klatte, Jessie Scholl, Lisa Brown, Amber J. Keyser, Suzy Vitello, Dao Strom. Fearless writers, all.

Thank you, Bernadette Cheyne, Ivan Hess, Margaret Kelso, and Charlie Meyers of Humboldt State University.

My family: Tim and Vickie Longo, Henri, June, and James Taylor Longo, Joe Hart, Patrick Clark, Daniel Slauson, Deanne Calvin. My sister, Christine Inez. Christine and Dominic Falletti and Kelsey Todd. My Lucas Arts family. Bradley Comito, for every perfect, frozen detail. Ellen, Mike, and Katrina Harding, love and thank you to the stars and moon and back. Sarah, Alex, and Malachi Neuse, in these pages and my every day. The Wallach-Neal family and Julia J. K. Rizzle: rock, river, esteemed colleague. It has been an honor. Analise Langford-Clark, my light in the fog. Robert Irvin, my celestial navigation.

Martha Brockenbrough and Jet Harrington. It is not often that people come along who are true friends and
sublime
writers. You are both. How impossibly lucky to find you.

And to my own little constellation, Tim and Cordelia Longo. My true south.

JENNIFER LONGO was a ballerina from ages eight to eighteen, until she eventually (reluctantly) admitted her talent for writing exceeded her talent for dance. The author of
Six Feet Over It,
she holds an MFA in Writing for Theater from Humboldt State University, where her obsessive love of Antarctica produced her thesis play about Antarctica's Age of Exploration. Jennifer lives in Seattle with her husband and daughter and writes about writing at
jenlongo.com
.