There are still some more members of Team Marbury who need to be mentioned here, and I know I'll end up neglecting to name others who were involved in bringing this incredibly taxing project onto the shelf.
Elizabeth Fithian, Jessica Tedder, and Ksenia Winnicki are my big go-to people when I need a favor and don't know who else to ask, like sending out some books to me or to deserving folks out there in the blogosphere and other alternate universes. And I know how hard they work, just based on the hour of the day when they send emails to me (we are on opposite ends of the country).
There is a name at the very back of the book that makes me feel a little sad and nostalgic: Allison Remcheck, who has moved away from New York and gotten married to some incredibly fortunate person. Allison will always be known as my "first fan." I think she was the first person in the Flatiron Building to read my debut novel, Ghost Medicine. But, more than that, any time I felt particularly crazed, like I do right now, I could send her an email and she'd know exactly how to talk me in from the ledge.
Then there is Dave Barrett, the managing editor, who is really funny and cool and should have no patience at all with people like me, but always manages to make me laugh about things in his limitless enthusiasm for letting people know exactly how he feels. He must be a real kick to work with.
Things wouldn't happen if you didn't have people like Nicole Liebowitz Moulaison, production manager, working on the team. And production also relies on the terrific contributions from Kathleen Breitenfeld and copy editor Anne Heausler (who occasionally comments here, and who, I like to think, finds copyediting my manuscripts to be as easy -- and thrilling -- as stumbling on an escalator).
I hate escalators.
And when I really need something, really fast, like revision pages or galley proofs and stuff like that, it always gets delivered to my door with Holly West's name on the package. Sometimes, when I panic about things not arriving on time (because I live in another century), Holly will look things up and make sure they're actually not lost in some great vacuum.
Phew. I'm not done yet.
See? People. It takes the entire seventh floor of a landmark Manhattan building... Which reminds me. The last time I visited, the security guard in the lobby told me and my wife to go to the Seventeenth floor. So, we got stranded on the wrong floor, in a lonely hallway with doors that only opened from the other side.
I could write a book about security guards, escalators, and underground parking facilities.
