Dream Boy (24 page)

Thanks to Aubrey Poole, our dream of an editor, and all the fine folks at Sourcebooks. Thanks to Susan Cohen and Brianne Johnson, who helped us find our way out of the woods. And thank you Eileen Carey, Shane Rebenschied, and Adrienne Krogh for making us think it might be perfectly fine if people judge a book by its cover.

A champagne toast to Mike Van Haelewyn and Lisa Applegate, who, according to Madelyn’s recollections, first introduced the two of us seventeen years ago when we co-taught a teen writing workshop at the Salem YMCA. The same goes out to Tom Angleberger and Cece Bell, who according to Mary’s much less reliable recollections, first introduced the two of us a week earlier at one of their famous Ellett Valley porch-pickings.

Dream
Boy
would be a lot less dreamy without our generous beta readers: David Butler and the Salem Public Library Teen Book Club, Ashley Dabbraccio, Kylee Lambert, and Wendy Shang. Thanks to Melody Veron Irby and Jenny Bitner for helping Mary think through ideas, and to Mary Norris Ferrate for having Mary’s back whenever she was getting freaked by life in general.

Big love to the writers of The BookYArd, to Mad’s Wednesday Morning Writing Crew, and to the A-Team.

To our families—the Crocketts, Deemers, Hills, Lazorchaks, and Rosenbergs—thank you, especially Butch, Graham, Karina, Stewart, Isabelle, Samson, Crockett, and Gabriel: you have our eternal gratitude for putting up with us through marathon phone-meetings and late-night contemplations of the em dash. A special shout-out to Mary’s mother-in-law (also named Mary) who cooked far, far, far more than her share and wiped bottoms and noses while the other Mary was working on this book.

We are also thankful for support—moral and otherwise—from the Hemphills, the Briers and Striers, Andy Bechtel, Natalie Blitt, Laurel Snyder, Joe Corey, Jillian Bergsma, Kristi Stultz, Melanie Almeder, Channing Johnson, the Roanoke College English Department, the Salem Museum, and
The
Roanoke
Times
.

Thanks to Blacksburg and Salem High Schools for their goldmines of angst. Thanks to Ginger Rogers (yes,
that
Ginger Rogers) and Mary Shelley (yes,
that
Mary Shelley). Thanks to readers and writers, bloggers, dreamers, and long-distance carriers. To the guy at Mill Mountain Coffee Shop who serves tea with his advice. To whoever makes those cranberry-orange scones.

Thank you Arlington, Brooklyn, and Raleigh. Thank you Blacksburg, Elliston, and Salem. And if you’re reading this book, thank you for your kind attention and for your willingness to dream.

Mary Crockett likes turtles, licorice, and the Yankees. Madelyn Rosenberg likes cats, avocados, and the Red Sox. Luckily they both like the weirdness of dreams (and each other) enough to write novels together. Their friendship has survived three moves, six kids, and countless manuscript revisions. Madelyn (
Canary
in
the
Coal
Mine
) lives in Arlington, Virginia, just outside D.C. Mary (
A
Theory
of
Everything: Poems
) remains in the mountains near Salem, Virginia. Visit them online at
www.marycrockett.com
and
www.madelynrosenberg.com
.