Tina Connolly - Copperhead

The grandparents:

I got pretty lucky in grandparents, but I would especially like to dedicate this to the memory of my grandmother. She was whip-smart, an autodidact, chic, feminist, witty, political, a lover of theatre and the arts. She loved traveling, and she took me to the Children’s Theater Company in Minneapolis ( Raggedy Ann & Andy! ), to the Shelburne Museum in Vermont (circus toys!), to a Wayne Thiebaud retrospective in Kansas City (all those delicious painted cakes). At their house I first read The Annotated Alice, Saki, and Ogden Nash. I miss her dearly—I wish I would have traveled with her more, after college—and I like to think she would have liked many of the moments in this book, particularly when The Hundred pour in with hatpins.

The thank-yous:

The wise and insightful K. Bird Lincoln and Katherine Sparrow for reading the first draft; Cassie Alexander and Anatoly Belilovsky for heroically answering medical questions (any oddities remaining are thoroughly my own); my dad for asking a lot of tactful questions about discrepancies in the third draft; my mom and Eric for taking the toddler every time I needed to finish yet … another … draft; Anne Brontë, whose work I so greatly admire; Kij Johnson and the CSSF novel workshop for invaluable advice for future novels; my agent, Ginger Clark, for all her wisdom and excellence; everyone at Curtis Brown for theirs; my editor, Melissa Frain, for her keen eye and general fantabulousness; Alexis Nixon, Susannah Noel, Irene Gallo, Larry Rostant, and everyone else on the Tor side for their support, attention to detail, and many et ceteras; all the bloggers, reviewers, podcasters, interviewers, and every single person out there who helped me share Ironskin; the incomparable Tinatsu Wallace for sculpting me a miniature half-mask in silver to be my lucky charm on tour; my dear friends at the St. Helens Book Shop; the wonderful librarians and booksellers who welcomed me at PNBA; and especially a tremendous thank-you to the bookstores who so graciously hosted me on the Ironskin tour—the Raven in my hometown of Lawrence, Barnes & Noble in Oak Park, Mysterious Galaxy in Redondo Beach, the University Bookstore in Seattle, and, of course, my beloved Powell’s Cedar Hills right here in Oregon.

April 2013

Portland, Ore.

TINA CONNOLLY lives with her family in Portland, Oregon, in a house that came with a dragon in the basement and blackberry vines in the attic. Her stories have appeared all over, including Lightspeed, Tor.com, Strange Horizons, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and her debut fantasy novel, Ironskin, was nominated for a Nebula. She is a frequent reader for PodCastle and narrates the Parsec-winning flash fiction podcast Toasted Cake . In the summer, she works as a face painter, which means a glitter-filled house is an occupational hazard.