Thank you to Ed Ochester and the University of Pittsburgh Press for taking these pages and making a dream come true. And finally, Vievee Francis, how can I find where to begin? Without you I cannot write this book because without you I am not myself. Not the self I needed to be, you have made me brave and knowledgeable beyond my wildest dreams when I first began to write in earnest this project which began as what I imagined would be a last record and turned out to be the seed to an impossible life. Not a day passes that I can look to the work and not ask “What would Vievee do?” To which the answer is always the same, “Work, live, know your craft, be the vanguard you were meant to be.” Thank you for saying yes to this book, thank you for giving me the courage to choose this life, the certainty to know it is the only one that I would ever choose.