Chapter 15 postscript

There are no unicorns, no Alice Island, and AJ Fikry's reading tastes don't always equal mine. Lambiase and Fikry's first wife uttered a phrase many times: "A town isn't a town without a bookstore." Sure enough, they've both read Neil Gaiman's American Gods. Kathy Boris edited this book without hesitation, with precise opinions, which changed my whole life invisibly.That's the power of a good editor.Thanks to everyone at Algonquin, especially Craig Poprauls, Emma Boyer, Anne Winslow, Brunson Hull, Debra Lin, Laurent Moss Leigh, Elizabeth Sharrat, Ina Stern and Jude Grant.

My agent, Douglas Stewart, was a great poker player and an occasional conjurer.These skills came in handy when writing AJ Fikry.Thanks also to his colleagues Madeleine Clark, Kirsten Hartz and especially Sylvia Molnar.Also for many reasons, thanks also to Claire Smith, Tamsin Berryman, Jean Fewell, Stuart Gervager, Angus Killick, Kim Hyland, Anjali Singer, Caroline Mackler and Rich Green. My father, Richard Zevin, bought me the first book with chapters, "Little Cabin in the Big Woods"; because I liked it, my father later bought about a thousand more books. It is a happy gift.My mother, Elan Zeven, used to drive me to bookstores during lunch breaks at work so I could get my favorite authors' new books the first day they went on sale.My grandfather, Meyer Sussman, and my grandmother, Adele Sussman, gave me books almost every time we saw each other.When I was in eleventh grade, my English teacher, Judith Byner, introduced me to contemporary fiction at a very malleable age.Hans Canossa has been my first and most patient reader for the better part of two decades.Yanina O'Malley, Lauren Wein and Jonathan Burnham edited the previous seven books for me.In short, these things and these people are probably the secret recipe for cultivating a writer.

Mark Gates, the Farrar-Strauss & Giroux sales rep who loved making friends is no longer with us, but he drove me all over Chicago during my 2007 book tour .Perhaps it was then that I began the idea for this book.Years later, Vanessa Cronin graciously answered my questions about sales calls and bibliographic timing.Of course, if there are errors in this book, the responsibility is still mine. In order not to be overlooked, I would also like to thank the many booksellers, writer chaperones, librarians, teachers, authors, book festival volunteers, and fellow publishing folks who have hosted events since I published my first novel ten years ago, talk to me.The emergence of Xiaodao Bookstore is based on these exchanges.

Finally, I take the liberty of describing the Green Animal Garden Garden in Portsmouth, Rhode Island.One thing is true: the park is closed in winter, but in summer, you can actually find unicorns there. We're not all novels and we're not all short stories In the end, we become a collection of life works.