Why the Acknowledgments at the Back of Your Book Are a Gratitude Practice

Yes, you belong to this party! You’ve worked hard to create a literary ecosystem around yourself. Now it’s time to give back. Here’s how to relish writing your acknowledgments.

I could have just listed names, clutching my little gold statue as the orchestra signaled me off the stage because my thank-you roll call was too long. I could have taken the cut-and-dried approach, as Claire Keegan does in Small Things Like These.

But I couldn’t. I have worked hard to be a good literary citizen and create a thriving ecosystem of authors, agents, publishers and editors around me who believe in giving back. Who believe in mentoring. Who believe in giving a hand up. 

Because it’s not easy to stay in the game as a writer. You are doing something that is largely invisible…until it’s visible. The process is largely unknowable to anyone outside of the author world. It’s easier to do laundry. That’s tangible: Clean clothes. It’s easier to post witty comments on social media: You get an instant like.

So when I sat down, finally, to write the acknowledgments for Boundless, which publishes in Fall 2024, I wanted to do it with heart — and flair. These people were beacons on my path. They also get starring roles in the road movie.

So this is my gratitude practice.

BEFORE WE BEGIN

WHY YOU SHOULD MAKE IT A PRACTICE TO READ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS IN YOUR FAVORITE BOOKS

The Acknowledgment page is a window into the publishing industry. It will tell you far more than the Publishers Marketplace announcement of the book deal. It shows you the path to success. A book is being born long before it is born. {For more on this, see my Substack, “From lived experience to a book: The path of my memoir, Boundless A TIMELINE OF SORTS”]

Also, it’s the best place to get agent names!

We do not write alone. We are never alone.

Writing only seems like a solitary endeavor. If ever you would see me writing, you may see me sitting at my laptop, accompanied by a swirl of insight, an active imagination and an army of words. It may look like I am alone, typing out a story. Maybe I have a window with a view of a mountain, maybe a hearty fern in a blue pot, maybe a white candle. 

But I am not alone. 

Writing is always a collaborative act. I don’t write TO the page—I write THROUGH the page.

To you. 

Writers always write in community. We’re always in conversation—with wise, kind and super-skilled people who become our mentors, our advocates, our inspirations. Our Muse.

I am deeply grateful to and humbled by this process. I’m in awe of the magic that can come forth. This is my love letter to all who accompanied me on the journey.

Why does this book unstitch me?

Boundless found me more than I found it. Many times, I asked, “Why does this book unstitch me?” When you ask a question like that, well, you know you have a book. You know you need to go, keep going and not go alone.

So many people have cheered for me, wept with me, encouraged me, listened to me, recommended books to me that sparked more conversation, talked it through with me and led me out of the pure confusion of how to lay down sentences on these pages. 

So many people have been my steady and noble witnesses along a path that made it possible for me to find rejuvenation after the loss of seemingly everything. They watched me reinvent myself. They helped me regain an emotional agility that many of us think vanishes with youth. I now hold the “pearl of great price,” the one worth selling everything for. 

I’m grateful to live in a thriving literary ecosystem that sustains me—and equips me to sustain others as a book coach/developmental editor/writing retreat leader. I see your faces all around the hearthspace of this work and nod to you. In your quest, you ground me. From the wild beauty of my heart to yours, I thank you.

Several of you, I want to name specifically: 

The power of mentorship

Erika Krouse, my first developmental editor on Boundless, who first made me believe I could fast-track this memoir and shape a life story into art.

Emily Rapp Black, my second developmental editor on Boundless, who knew my sorrow as a mother and kept believing in this story. 

Jona Kottler, who kept saying, “Hold to your vision. Your vision is your vision. Keep writing.” Thank you for writing with me. (And thanks to Flying Star Cafe and Satellite Coffee in Albuquerque—not sure we could have done this without you.)

The Lighthouse Book Project, which gave me a literary booster shot when I was eight years out from finishing my MFA in Writing and I needed structure again. You have become my second literary family.

To my first literary family at the Naslund-Mann School of Writing at Spalding University, where I earned my MFA in Writing, thank you for the gold. I say everything about Spalding is gold because all my writing from that point forward has been spun into gold, and it will keep on being gold. Thank you, Sena Jeter Naslund and Karen Mann, for seeing that a creative writing program that was intellectually rigorous and emotionally supportive was possible and necessary. 

Thank you, Sena, for all the times you said, “Welcome home,” whether we were in London, Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Florence or Louisville. Thank you, Katy Yocom, who helped me get lost in all those places and find myself again. Thank you, Terry Price for leading our merry band of alumni for many years—your building of that literary community is why I say, “Spalding is the gift that keeps on giving.” Thank you, Kathleen Driskell, for carrying on the vision, writing poetry that takes my breath away and rocking that red hair! And thank you to my mentors, the exquisite Robin Lippincott, the perspicacious K.L. Cook and the wise and passionate Jody Lisberger. 

There have been many other writing mentors: Percival Everett, James Baker Hall, Ron Carlson, Valerie Miner and more. You came to me through my other almost-MFAs at the University of Kentucky and Arizona State University. And thank you to the late Lisa Lenard-Cook, who helped me love the beautiful mess of a manuscript.

To the team at Atmosphere Press, I’m so glad I found you in the lonely exhibit hall at the AWP Conference when a pandemic struck the nation and sent most literary types into forced isolation. I’m so glad I found you again in Seattle, when I got sold on the idea that with Atmosphere, I would be in good hands. 

The devotion of early readers

To my longtime readers at Sage Magazine and the Albuquerque Journal, which published my columns for 16 years, thank you for your eyes and ears on my life. Thank you, dear readers, for always asking, “How are the twins?” because you watched them grow up. The seed of this book came from one brave and poignant column written days after my two babies nearly died.

To Fourth Genre for publishing “Resurrection,” an early version of the story of my twins’ near-miss with death—specifically Laura Julier, for some mighty fierce editing that gave that story the one more thing it needed.

To Under the Gum Tree and The Colorado Sun for helping me tell the early parts of my empty-nest story.

The grounding of spiritual practice

To the Living School, the Center for Action and Contemplation and founder Father Richard Rohr, which have grounded me in acts of contemplative solidarity and enriched me with the teachings of the Immortal Diamond and Thomas Merton’s True Self. 

What, ever, have I learned by dying? That the False Self can fall away, and will. But you can do the True Self no harm. Thank you for helping me find another word for emptiness. It’s: Boundless.

Thank you to the contemplative practice that has sustained me through our Circle 14 community—you are my spiritual family.

The people who hold me—also, a casting call for the movie!

To Bill Ostendorf, you sent me on an adventure, and I got a good story out of it. Also, you saved my soul.

To Jane Walker, always prescient, always ready with the brave truth, always hilarious. You get to be Maya Rudolph in the movie. I’ll be Kristen Wiig.

To Roma Arellano, sorry about the Maya Rudolph thing, but can you be America Ferrera? I’m sure you’ve got a speech like that in you. Together, we have been fierce feminist entrepreneurs, writers and mothers. I thank you for your calm wisdom and the way you make me giggle at all appropriate and inappropriate times.

To Roma and all our mamas, Tricia, Wendy, Cindy and Danielle, just look at our babies! We did this together.

To Martha Kaser, don’t we have the stories now? We can even make Costco fun. You get to be Melissa McCarthy. 

To Peg Fiedler, you be Geena Davis. I’ll be Susan Sarandon.

To Marianne Hund, we keep the faith together. 

To Maureen, you are my light. I’m so glad we figured everything out about our lives in Venice. As the poet David Whyte wrote, “Friendship transcends disappearance: an enduring friendship goes on after death, the exchange only transmuted by absence, the relationship advancing and maturing in a silent internal conversational way, even after one half of the bond has passed on.” I suppose we will keep keepin’ on with that conversation.

To Portia, you are my angel.

To my dear sisters: Shirley Flynn Mitchell, you see my dreams and I hold yours. Together, we keep them alive. Linda April Flynn, you held me through this. You are one of the bravest people I know. 

To my late father, Gene Paul Flynn. You made me a writer by believing in me. One day I came home from school and told you I wanted to be a writer, and you gave me a Brother typewriter and a collection of Hemingway short stories. With that, you installed in me one true, abiding idea: “You can make it from here.” Because of you, I have always had a creative birthright and an immeasurable inheritance as a storyteller. I relish family dinner nights laced with your family stories, jolly humor and passionately recited lines from Shakespeare. I am so proud that you became a novelist, too.

To my late mother, Bonnie Belle Flynn. You filled our home with faith and beauty and the awe of music. By the way you leaned into playing the movements of a Beethoven symphony on piano, you taught me narrative flow. Watching you annotate your music with fingering notes and dynamic prompts, I mirrored your devotion to discipline. In the ardent way you played, you taught me how to bring forth the motifs and interludes, harmonies and descants—all the nuances that are the subtext of music so that a song tells a story. One day I stood before you as you fought to catch your last breaths. I held the pages of my novel manuscript in my hands and offered you words I wanted to make sure you heard before the music faded out of you: “I knew how to write this because you taught me how to play music. This is my music.” 

To the father of my children, once you said, “Carolyn, they are beautiful!” Yes, they are.

To Emerald and Lucas, my little stars who are big stars now. I have loved having a front-row seat to your becoming. The promise of the future is what I’ve helped you to see, and yet…always see this: On this day we are alive. Let’s keep holding the awe and splendor of that. Be brave, be light, be you.

27 July 2024