Orson Card - Magic Street

Aaron Johnston obtained for me the official maps of Baldwin Hills that I used as a resource. And he worked like a crazy man to produce Posing as People (besides writing one of the one-act plays within it), so that I could direct the plays and still have time to write on Magic Street during those hot August days in the summer of 2004.

I was helped by my normal crew of pre-readers—Kathy H. Kidd, Erin Absher, and, as always, my wife, Kristine, who also had to suffer through every idea I came up with for the story over a period of five years. Kristine also performed financial miracles, keeping everything afloat while I was six months later than I thought I'd be in completing this novel.

My assistant, Kathleen Bellamy, and my resident webwright, Scott Allen, make things run smoothly and help me in uncountable ways, though to Scott's relief I didn't write a single page of this book in the car beside him, as I had done with the novel before. Not that there was no car-writing this time—but it was Kristine doing the driving on the way to and from a speaking gig in Fredericksburg, Virginia. As she drove I wrote two chapters... and the speech.

I'm grateful for the patience and the sense of urgency provided by my editor, the saintly Betsy Mitchell, and my agent, the long-suffering Barbara Bova.

And thanks to Queen Latifah for putting Yolanda White on a motorcycle.