Julia Fierro - Cutting Teeth

I owe much of my motivation in finishing Cutting Teeth to the incredible community of writers in NYC. Thank you to all the reading series, bookstores, festivals, conferences, and literary organizations that hosted me in the last three years. Reading my work aloud revved my engine each and every time, and kept me bashing on.

Thank you to Scott Adkins and Jennifer Cody Epstein of the Brooklyn Writers Space, my home away from home, and 24/7 quiet haven; to BookCourt for making me feel like family and giving the Sackett Street Writers’ community a beautiful place to thrive; and to WORD bookstore for the kind of support a debut novelist can only dream of.

Thank you to my teachers: Harvey Grossinger, the very first to believe in my writing; Ethan Canin, Frank Conroy, Jo Haxton, Chris Offutt, and Marilynne Robinson, who saw a glimpse of the writer I could be and gave me the confidence I needed to find her.

Sam Chang, Connie Brothers, Deb West, Jan Lacina Zenisek, and everyone at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, thank you for the greatest gift a writer can ask for — the time to write and the permission to believe in myself.

Thank you to my family and friends who never quit believing in me, even when I worked so hard to convince them to, especially Karen and Howie Feinstein, Matt Mahurin, Lisa Desimini, Aimee Phan, Lena Kaminsky, Amy Shearn, and Penina Roth.

To the two women who have cared for my children with selfless dedication, I am forever grateful: Anna Bauman, without whom this book would never have been written, and Samten Choden, who gave me the peace of mind to return to writing.

Thank you to all my children’s teachers, and especially to Shahna Paul, who taught me to be a better parent in a difficult time.

To my mother, the strongest person I know and the first to teach me how to tell a story; and my father, a survivor, an artist, who can put his hands into the hearth without a single burn. To my brother, my constant companion and a wonderful father.

Mille grazie to all the Fierros, who gave me a rich history of stories to tell, and to all the women who came before me on both sides of my family, strong, smart, creative, but without the time and privilege to tell their stories. I write for you.

To my children, Luca and Cecilia, thank you. Before you, the only true love I knew was that which I experienced in books. Loving you has made me twice the writer. I missed you all those hours I spent writing this book.

Justin, my best friend and partner of sixteen years, thank you for saving me. Again and again.

To all of Cutting Teeth ’s readers, thank you. You’ve made my dream come true. You complete this book.

JULIA FIERRO is the founder of the Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop, which has been a creative home to more than two thousand writers since 2002. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was a Teaching-Writing Fellow, she’s written for Guernica, The Millions, Flavorwire, and other publications, and has been profiled in The L Magazine, Brooklyn Magazine, The Observer, and The Economist . She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and their two children.

Visit the author’s Web site at www.juliafierro.com and find her on Twitter at @juliafierro.

For more about Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop, visit www.sackettworkshop.com.