Black River (33 page)

Many thanks to fiddlers Chip Cohen and Brian O'Donnell for teaching me to play many of the tunes that appear in these pages, and to farrier Michael Waldorf for letting me watch him shoe horses.

Thank you to Lorin Rees for being everything I could have hoped for in an agent, and to Nicole LaBombard for her careful reading and thoughtful feedback.

I am thankful to everyone at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for their enthusiasm and dedication. Special thanks to Jenna Johnson for her insightful suggestions and for being my guide through this process, to Nina Barnett for having all the answers, and to Larry Cooper for his sharp eye.

Finally, and most of all, I am immensely grateful to my parents for their unwavering love and support.

 

S. M. H
ULSE
received her MFA from the University of Oregon and was a fiction fellow at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her stories have appeared in
Willow Springs, Witness
, and
Salamander
. A horsewoman and fiddler, she has spent time in Washington, Montana, Idaho, and Oregon. She lives in Spokane, Washington.

www.smhulse.com