I really am grateful

Anyone who has worked on a project designing something, like remodeling a house, knows that sometimes it is not the big decisions that faze you, but the little choices.  The designer may ask something simple about doors or locksets, like “Knobs or latches?” and you’re way-laid thinking about something you never gave much consideration to before.  So it has been with me and front of the book stuff.

One big stumbling block was deciding whether to have a separate page for thank-you’s.  If you have the book, you can see I didn’t.  There were many reasons for this, which I’ll get to, but first I want to give a shout out to all the people who worked on Solace in So Many Words in a professional capacity. I am grateful to Bob Feie who designed the book and the Weighed Words logo.  Also due for a big thank-you is Joanne Hurley who helped me incorporate Weighed Words and come up with the various contracts I needed.  Working behind the scenes is Kate Sloan Fiffer who helped with proofreading and social networking.   In California, Eileen Duhne has been guiding me in my efforts  to publicize the book.   And if you are liking this site, you are admiring the work of Ilsa Brink, an artist whose work is most impressive.  And I also want  you to check out the books by our publisher Hourglass Books.

I also want to thank the many people who gave advice or influenced me.  But that’s a lot of people to thank, and I want to take my time and do it right.  So I will do that in the next blog entry and coincidentally introduce you to some terrific people.  And of course, I have a lot of gratitude for my contributors, and I will use another entry to tell you what they are doing these days. Back to the thank you page—was I right in not having one?

Here is my background on this issue.  Way back in my twenties I worked for a professional organization and edited a journal, which in, as I see it now, youthful hubris, I undertook to redesign.  When the new look was introduced, I, as editor, addressed the readers in a letter (not atypical) and spent a good deal of copy thanking those who worked on the design.  The editor-in-chief of the organization, a man I sometimes admired for his reticence, commented that my letter sounded like an Oscar acceptance speech.  Ouch. That hadn’t been my intention.  Apparently though, I had to admit, such praise in print could be seen as self-indulgent. Thirty years later I had this in mind as my book finally was going to print.  Plus, I was afraid I’d forget somebody, like Hillary Swank forgot her husband Chad Lowe and then they ended up divorced.  Yikes.   Or, I would spell a name wrong—it could happen.

I took an informal poll.  My women writer friends had assumed I’d write one.  The men I asked thought a thank-you was unnecessary. Was it somehow less professional to include a page of thank-you? I looked at other books.  Some did and some didn’t. Finally, because it was easier, I went without.  So, tell me, what would you do in your book?