Cutting Teeth: A Novel (45 page)

Daughter: Mackenzie DOB 5/22/07

TTC #2 since December 2009

Diagnosis: Unexplained infertility

Member of “Clomid Chicks”

HANKSDADDY76
    Re: XCITED_2BA_MOMMY—All in good time!

10 minus 2 days and counting … More soon …

In the meantime, say it with me, ladies:
STICKY BABY DUST! STICKY BABY DUST!

acknowledgments

Endless gratitude to my ideal readers, the two women who believed in and accepted my complicated characters with open arms: Maria Massie, my brilliant agent, who made everything possible; and Elizabeth Beier, my literary fairy godmother, and the most charming and enthusiastic of editors, for her relentless optimism, boundless vocabulary, warmth, wit, and genius.

Caeli Wolfson Widger—my constant reader and my literary kindred spirit—you made this novel sing with your generous, and always spot-on, edits. Heather Aimee O’Neill, thank you, dear friend, for luring me back into writing.

To everyone at St. Martin’s Press—you are as fabulous as the building that houses you, and the most hardworking and patient team an author can ask for, especially Michelle Richter, whose honesty and humor kept me grounded. Stephanie Hargadon, Angelique Giammarino, Anya Lichenstein, and Dori Weintraub—I owe you a lifetime of hand-delivered cupcakes.

Thank you to
Cutting Teeth
’s earliest readers, whose generosity and kind words reminded me why I write: Emma Straub, Megan Abbott, Karen Thompson Walker, Therese Anne Fowler, Joyce Johnson, Michele Filgate, Deborah Copaken Kogan, and Bret Anthony Johnston.

Twelve years worth of gratitude to the two thousand five hundred students and instructors who have passed through the Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop since 2002, and a very special thank-you to my own students. I am grateful for every workshop around my kitchen table with the talented and compassionate writers who helped me believe, with a religious fervor, that anything is possible.

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.

About the Author

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
.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

CUTTING TEETH.
Copyright © 2014 by Julia Fierro. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Cover design and photograph by Steve Snider

eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Fierro, Julia.

    Cutting teeth: a novel / Julia Fierro.

            pages cm

        ISBN 978-1-250-04202-6 (hardcover)

        ISBN 978-1-4668-3922-9 (e-book)

    I.  Title.

      PS3606.I368C88 2014

      813'.6—dc23

                                              2014008040

e-ISBN 9781466839229

First Edition: May 2014