I don’t know if it takes only one village to raise a child, but it takes lots of villages to make a writer. All of us are shaped and informed and guided by the people and events of our lives. We’re also shaped and informed and guided by people we’ve never met. Here are some of the people who helped me become a writer:

• Kenneth Uva
• Diana Uva
• Katie Uva

My mother and father:
Jack and Isabel Abramowitz

My friends:
Robert Giacobbe and Thom Hunter

Many other friends and family

My illustrator: Kate Hoffman
www.katehoffmanart.com

My editor and publisher: Robert R. Ward

My English teachers, good and bad

The writers I have loved:
From Jane Austen to J.D. Salinger
with a special nod of thanks to
Walt Whitman, Mark Twain,
F. Scott FitzGerald and Tennessee Williams

And Sammy