In the Land of Invisible Women (46 page)
Read In the Land of Invisible Women Online
Authors: Qanta Ahmed
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I
HAVE BEEN READING BOOKS ALL my life but never until now understood how much work is required in the shape of truly inspired encouragement cosseting the author. All I had to do as a writer was “show up,” whether in the Kingdom or at the laptop. For everyone else, this was the proverbial blood, sweat, and tears. For these selfless optimists and hope-mongerers, for these generous soulful supporters, for these sages ripe with wisdom, for these workers of magic and wordsmiths, for each of you, I offer my deepest gratitude. Without you, there would be no here.
For Wendy Lipkind, my dear, dear literary agent; from the first meeting you ensnared me, we were truly “bookends.” It was in those stylish moments encapsulated in your smoky, sultry, so-good voice that I knew I was embarking on a new journey which will remain with me long after these words are forgotten. Your kindnesses unleashed the river within the writer, and (once un-dammed) its subsequent careful containment has fueled the turbulent adventure into the high-walled gorges of my memories. Thank you for the patient phone calls, the compassion, and all the cold dinners you endured during my monologues. Thank you, Wendy, for your goodness, for your grace, and, most of all, for your late mother's handbag to ward off my demons!
For Hillel Black, my chief literary editor at Sourcebooks, the kindest, most gracious, so generous Word-Meister, I have no words which could convey the gratitude I feel. Your voice is pure New York, your quips take no prisoners, but, for sure, in the meticulous resections of my flabby first offerings, I have to say, the surgery, “Dr.” Black, if rather bloody, was a success. A writer couldn't ask for more than an editor of such honesty and God-given horse-sense. But it is the tinkering archeology of resurrecting memories into language at which you truly excel. I most treasure our private discoveries which you salvaged into the most surprising paragraphs. Thank you, Hillel, for your wisdom and substance. Above all, thank you for your boundless, wondrous curiosity.
Dominique Raccah at Sourcebooks, the pint-sized pistol of publishing, I thank most for the opportunity and the belief at a time when I lacked both. You heard the outcast concealed within and broadcast her voice. From the moment you spoke, in your raw, passionate, plain-speaking voice, I knew my book was home. What an amazing company you have created, where on my first visit every single employee stood up to greet me, shake my hand, and speak about my then book-in-utero. The enthusiasm and passion which infuses Sourcebooks from restroom to stockroom to boardroom, comes from the force within you. Thank you for breathing life into this book.
Also at Sourcebooks I thank Sarah Riley, Heather Moore, Tony Viardo, Christiaan Simmons, and Whitney Lehman. Thank you so much, each of you, for being the first encouraging contacts beyond my world of words. You gave the dream its first mantles of reality. On a chilly October day in Naperville it was the warmth and energy of your belief which made the book begin to feel real. Your spirits transformed mine, and in those short friendly moments I grew from a doctor fiddling around with stories into a writer with a readership. Thank you for then, thank you for now, and thank you for all that is to come.
To Te d Carmichael at Sourcebooks, for all your patient emails and edits, for your polite queries and tireless corrections, I thank you most. For the referencing and the footnotes, thank you, and please can you show me how to do that when we next meet? That you could read both my innumerable comments and Hillel's anguished writing straight from a nineteenth century prescription pad was truly heroic. What can I say, but “Holy Christ,” Ted, thank you!
And to the unflappable Stephen O'Rear: enormous thanks for the meticulous, fastidious, and tireless reviewing, advice, and dedicated commitment to the production of this book. You handled my last-minute, strained, extremely under-the-wire insertions with poise and aplomb. If production editor doesn't work out, consider neurosurgery! Thank you, Stephen, more than ever on this, the final day of writing.
And last, but never least, to the beginning.
To my teacher, Miss Connolly (or “Bernadette,” since I turned thirty). It began when you lent me
The Borrowers Afloat
. I was six, perhaps seven, when I decided to write a story inspired by that book. A generation ago, you carefully boxed the penciled, childish essay in your English attic. I still glimpse the memory of that story: longer than I was tall, lined paper pasted to purple backing which matched my velvet headband, the whole suspended high on the school notice board, all of it perched there by someone with long arms. I think it may have been you. It was with those brass drawing pins, you turned a small girl into a gap-toothed winner, a writer into someone who was read.
Thank you Bernadette for the first letters I learned. Thank you for the first books I read. Above all, thank you for the first invitation to write. You are my first agent, editor, publisher, and reader. You, my teacher, are my hero, I mean, “heroine,” as you will surely correct, in your red-inked flourish.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
T
RAINED IN NEW YORK CITY, Dr. Ahmed is a board certified pulmonologist and sleep specialist. She is currently appointed an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina at Charleston, where she lives and practices.
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