You can’t publish a book without friends. There’s too much waiting, uncertainty, and anxiety baked into the process for an author to survive without emotional support. My frantic, tearful phone calls to besties like Ian Carlos Crawford and Russell Falcon kept me laughing when my brain wanted to wallow. Drew Factor is not just a friend, but a watcher on the wall: he’s the only human being other than me to have read every version of this story. Sorry I had to kill your namesake, Drew. Mike Chen was an indispensable fount of knowledge about the book submission process, on which there are very few articles or books written. Thank you to the patient ears of Amanda Santos, Wendy Heard, Mathew Rodriguez, Thomas Williams, and the TeamRocks Slack channel. Thank you to my Twin Peaks fan group—Keith, Michael-Vincent, Robert, and Marianna—whose lively discussions kept me going during agent hunting. Thanks to Garrard Conley for his vital insights into the horrors of conversion therapy. Thanks to an old friend, Kelsey Famous, who years ago—the week before I came out to my family—suggested the next thing I write should be about a boy finding his way home.

The YA community has inspired me for years while Surrender Your Sons incubated. It can be tough. There are a lot of big personalities, new ideas, and a persistent need to hold everyone accountable for themselves (what a concept!), but there are no finer people in publishing. Thank you, Dahlia Adler, Aiden Thomas, Rob Bittner, Cody Roecker, Rachel Strolle, and Claribel Ortega, for your enthusiasm. Thank you, Fabian and Kai—titans of European YA—for being two of the most fabulous Insta stars I know. Thank you, Terry Benton, not just for your belief but for fighting every day to forge your own way in this business. Thank you, Ryan La Sala, Corey Whaley, Cale Dietrich, Lev Rosen, Adib Khorram, Shaun David Hutchinson, Alex London, Tom Ryan, and Julian Winters, for shepherding brave, wonderful queer boys through your magnificent fictional worlds.

The next three names are going to make me cry. Caleb Roehrig: my first hero-to-friend transition, I wouldn’t be writing without your work to guide me and I wouldn’t know what to do with myself without our texts. Kevin Savoie: my salty little brother, my fellow Illinois kin who knows that Pepsi is better than Coke, and one of the fiercest writers I know. Phil Stamper: my de facto manager, my sage adviser, my Jack Donaghy (a reference you finally get!), and a superstar in the making. Gonna get even cornier here and acknowledge that in the weeks before I sold this book, I fell—and fell hard—and I was not pleasant, but you three caught me. Thanks is also due to the Househusbands of YA—Jonathan Stamper-Halpin, Uldis Balodis, and Damian Alexander—for allowing your men’s phones to keep going off all day with my deluge of messages.