Acknowledgments
Any author will tell you that although their name might be the only one on the cover, no one writes a book alone. I am indebted to the people who have helped me with this book in more ways than they know:
Katherine Bull, my long-suffering acquisitions editor and friend.
Amber Avines, for keeping my English more grammatically correct than I ever would.
Jennifer Pariseau, psychologist, family therapist, and most importantly a long-time friend. We met as students and were reunited via Facebook. I am extremely privileged to have had Jennifer help me with this project. If you are looking for a great family therapist in the Seattle area, talk to Jennifer (http://thenurturedparent.com/).
Ilene Haddad, an insanely talented individual with whom it has been a pleasure to work on several projects in the past. I was so glad when Ilene agreed to collaborate with me on this project. I think her chapter illustrations bring a little levity to the book. You can see more of her illustrations at http://www.casaweenie.com/.
There is one other person who, for reasons far too complicated, cannot be named here but knows who they are. Without your help, comments, and friendship, there would be no book with my name on it.
Thank you to this cool team of people.
A book that only shared my thoughts might be a little on the dry side. By using the service Help A Reporter Out (HARO; www.helpareporter.com), I was able to connect to a lot of wonderful individuals who were willing to share their stories with me. I am very grateful to everyone who took the time to respond. I am especially thankful to the following people who shared stories and thoughts with me that I was able to incorporate into the book:
Kevin Ohashi, Jimmy Martin, Wes Rogers, Pavel Mikoloski, Adam Itkoff, Pam Consear, Jamie Pritchser, Kirsten Westberg, Steph Calvert, Denise Snow, Edward Carroll, Shelley Hunter Kukuk, Kathryn Vercillo, Katie McCaskey, Thursday Bram, Faith Amon, Ruksanah Hussein, Jeff Zbar, Haralee Weintraub, John Miller, Eric Nagel, Shel Horowitz, Dayna Steele, Dan Ramirez, Arthur Cooper, Jacque Miller, Robert Pearce, Carolyn Pearson, Donna Ledbetter, Steven MacDonald, Lidia Varesco Racoma, Adrienne Capollupo, Kim Miller, and Sheila Kale