Defiance Til Death

Dedication: To the ghosts and the living who conspired … wittingly or not… to make me a writer. To my parents, who claimed we don’t see eye to eye, but whose love of decency and work, and people gave me the very lens through which I now critique the world. To Charlee, who heard every rough draft of my soul and told me when it was bullshit. That kind of honesty is rare. That kind of love is rarer. To my children, who believe believed in me loudly and without caution … when belief was hard to come by. To Aunt Ernestine, the kind of radical goodness they don’t make anymore. She fed the hungry, loved without condition, and always made room at the table. If there’s a heaven, she’s running it. To Pam Garrett, who insists she didn’t do much … but she taught me how to write. She taught me how to translate the storm. How to make the thoughts and the tangled pros, the metaphors clinging to everything like vines and work them into something hole. How to make the chaos sing. She’ll say the gift is mine, but I’ll speak plainly: without her there are no words, there is no voice, there is no me. And to all the wild and the weary, the sane, and the savaged, the ones who make art in the ruins and still dare to believe … this is for you. —R.A.