An enormous round of thanks to those readers who offered early feedback and got me on track when I went off it: Gracie Anderson, Kendra Carlson, Katie Caskey, Josh Hinke, and most especially Ryan Gallagher, who read more drafts than anyone and has never been shy in sharing his pages and pages of notes-and usually made me laugh in the process.

Thank you to friends Daren Streblow and Jessie Rae Rayle for answering my questions in fields related to their expertise and far removed from mine. Any mistakes that still exist are mine and mine alone.

Thank you to all my UMD students, current and past, for your daily bursts of creativity, talent, and inspiration, which, in turn, inspire me. You've touched me more than I can express.

Thank you to my family for all these many years of love and support-and for sitting through just about every play I've ever been in.

And finally, to Pat, who is my first reader, my best reader, my true companion, who teaches me to laugh, to mourn, to live today and live tomorrow.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

Photo by Blake Johnson.

TOM ISBELL is an actor-author-professor. A graduate of the Yale School of Drama, he has acted in theater, film, and TV, working opposite Robert De Niro, Ed Harris, Sarah Jessica Parker, and others. Currently a theater professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth, he has had three of his plays produced by the Theater for Young Audiences at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, including Teddy Roosevelt and the Treasure of Ursa Major, which was adapted into a book with thenFirst Lady Laura Bush penning the foreword. Tom and his wife, Pat, live in Duluth, Minnesota. You can visit him online at www.tomisbell.com.

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