You Know Me Well(64)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book first started during a conversation on October 11, 2012, and the first chapter of it was sent on January 20, 2013, starting a back-and-forth pattern that would finish on June 28, 2015. It is safe to say that neither of us in October 2012 imagined that the hypothetical book we were talking about would be completed the weekend of (a) Pride Week when we were both (b) in San Francisco right after (c) the Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage rights for people like us. We liked to imagine Katie and Mark celebrating along with us in the streets.

There are many people we have to thank for the book you have in your hands. Together, we would like to thank the extraordinary Sara Goodman, whose infectious excitement and thoughtful words have always been deeply appreciated. We’d also like to thank everyone else at St. Martin’s, and at all of our foreign publishers, for believing in this book. Our agents, Sara Crowe and Bill Clegg, and the many people who support them, are also the beneficiaries of our profound gratitude.

Nina would like to thank the teenagers she’s known, whether in life or by way of a laptop screen, who have been unafraid to voice their uncertainty. You’ve reminded her that it can be a gift to not have it all figured out. She’d also like to thank a certain blond girl who, in 2010 English Comp, said she was afraid she would stop dancing when she grew up and forget that it had once been everything to her. Finally, many thanks to her writing group for their moral and artistic support and her friends and family for making her world a beautiful place, especially Amanda, for giving her time to write so many of these chapters, and Kristyn and Juliet, for innumerable daily wonders.

David would like to thank his family and friends (as always), with special shout-outs to Stephanie Perkins, Rainbow Rowell, and all of the Openly YA authors he’s toured with over the past few years, including (but not at all limited to) Bill Konigsberg, Sandy London, Aaron Hartzler, Sara Farizan, Will Walton, Adam Silvera, and Juno Dawson. He’d also like to thank Nancy Garden, for leading the way for all the rest of us, and Jen Corn, Sarah (Roo) Cline, their kids Maizie and Amon, Jane Mason, Sarah Hines Stephens, and everyone at Books Inc., because I couldn’t imagine writing a San Francisco book without tipping my hat to you.

And from both of us—thank you to the readers who keep us going, time and time again.