Special thanks to Victoria Irwin and Karen Maeda Allman for immeasurable kindness.

Love and grateful devotion to the supportive early readers and hand-holders: my Café Verité coven and my Bainbridge writers, who gave me a new home: Dawn Simon, Jennifer Mann, and Suzanne Selfors. Thank you also to Bainbridge Island’s BARN for writing support and space.

Heartfelt gratitude for time, reading, and kind words to Deb Caletti, Jo Knowles, Martha Brockenbrough, Holly Cupala, Jeff Zentner, Kathleen Glasgow, and Joy McCullough.

Thank you to Georgia Hardstark, Karen Kilgarriff, and Steven Ray Morris for saving me from myself.

To my family: you are, as always, on every page I write. Unless I say it’s not you; then it’s probably not. My older daughter, Julia J. K. Rizzle Neal. Tim and Vickie Longo, the Falletti family, Kathy and James Clark, the Temmermans, and the Kiekhaefers. Sarah Sydor, unending love. James, Henri, and June Longo, for daily writing assistance. Thank you to my Fair Oaks family: Joe, Dan, Dan’s Joe, Deanne, Beth, Aaron, Merete, Barbara, Karen, Lucy, Corey, Jeff, Amy’s Jeff, Patrick, Poe, and my sisters Lisa, Brianne, and my very own Analise Langford Clark. I would be alone without you.

My father, Fred Belt, who would have loved this one.

My dad, Robert Irvin, who loved them all. Who is in every word, always.

Deep respect and gratitude for every former and current person in foster care, and to you who let me listen to your lives, who helped me to tell Muir’s story; though it will never be enough, all I know to say is thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Tim Longo Jr. For walking me into the forest, for your love of the wilderness and of John Muir. And me. And REI. But mostly me.

And to my own brave truth-teller: Cordelia Elanor, the reason for this book, the reason for it all. Always.

About the Author

JENNIFER LONGO is the author of Six Feet Over It and Up to This Pointe. Her storied careers as a playwright, elementary school librarian, preschool teacher, and literary associate at San Francisco’s Magic Theatre prepared her for the most humbling fortune of her life: being a foster and adoptive mother. Jennifer holds an MFA in Writing for Theatre from Humboldt State University. She lives on an island near Seattle with her husband and daughter and writes about writing at her website.

jenlongo.com

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