Ordinarily, by your fourteenth set of acknowledgments, you expect to have knocked it down to three or four solid paragraphs mostly just thanking the people who turned the once-nonsensical draft you threw at your wonderful editor with an email that said “Thanks so much for the twelve deadline extensions” into the polished book you now hold in your hands. (Or maybe that’s just me? That might be just me.) However, since this book is literally fifteen years in the making (I know, right? But I was doing other stuff in the meantime, I promise), this is gonna get a little long—bear with me. (Or don’t! You’ve already read the book, for which I am very grateful. You’re totally allowed to put this down now.)

This book began in a class called Writing for T(w)eens at the University of Pennsylvania taught by the esteemed Melissa Jensen, to whom I am forever grateful for both an excellent education and convincing me this story had legs. I was so convinced of it, even, that over the next couple of years of writing and querying, I asked about a million people to beta this book, and I’m so grateful for all the encouragement and the many sets of notes most of you probably don’t even remember giving me at this point, but anyway! Huge thank-you to Marieke Nijkamp, Maggie Hall, Gina Ciocca, Chessie Zappia, Christopher Koehler, Jaz Hillenberg, Dani Leeds, and Aliza Boim for polishing and cheering on the original version of this book, and giving me something to work with before I absolutely shredded it to death for the version you see in front of you.

As far as first real querying experiences go, it was in fact a lovely one, and I’m so grateful to Victoria Marini for ending it with the rejection that was the final editorial note I needed; it honestly changed the course of my writing career in a way I have never forgotten. (So did selling my first anthology, so big ups to Victoria all around, really!)

Fun fact: that version was still supposed to make it to publication; it was almost my next Spencer Hill Contemporary book, thanks to the brilliant Patricia Riley, who’s been in the business of making my publishing dreams come true for some time now. All’s well that ends well, but I will never not be thankful for the vote of faith and knowing I was in the most capable editorial hands.