Acknowledgments
Thank you to Patricia Leavy, Peter de Liefde, John Bennett, Jolanda Karada, Paul Chambers, and everyone else at Brill | Sense and the Social Fictions series for your faith in me, your willingness to support creativity, and your invaluable guidance. I would also like to especially thank Shalen Lowell for your considerable assistance and support. I cannot overstate how much the efforts and support of all you means to me.
Thank you especially to my spouse Xan Nowakowski for giving me the courage to write novels in the first place and walking by my side as I completed them and sent them out for consideration. My books would not exist without your inspiration, guidance, and faith, and I will never be able to thank you enough for what your support and encouragement means to me.
I would also like to thank Lain Mathers, Nik Lampe, Eve Haydt, and Shay Phillips for providing constructive comments and insights throughout this process. There is no way for me to express how important your efforts have been to me.
I would also like to thank someone I have never met. Like Cigarettes & Wine, this novel was written while I was listening to the works of Jason Isbell nonstop, and his records provided a soundtrack for the writing, editing, and revision of the work.
Finally, this novel would not be possible without the years of research I have done on sexualities, gender, religion, and health. I have had the privilege of interviewing and observing so many wonderful bisexual, transgender, non-binary, lesbian, gay, intersex, poly, kink, asexual, and otherwise Queer people formally and informally over the years, and many of their experiences find voice throughout this novel. I would thus like to thank all of them both for sharing their stories with researchers like me, and for being role models to many of us navigating gender, sexualities and relationships throughout contemporary society.