No Vacancy

by Tziporah Cohen

  To my literary community: thank you to Vermont College of Fine Arts and to Sarah Aronson for getting me there. To my VCFA class, the Darling Assassins, for keeping me there. To Sarah Ellis, the late Bonnie Christensen, and Shelley Tanaka, the VCFA advisors who read the very first incarnations of this book and told me to keep writing it. To critique partners and beta readers Susan You-Are-Awesome Korchak, Monica Roe, Katia Rania, Anna Craig, David Rogers, Sarah Aronson, Meg Wiviott, Francisco Stork, Gail Baker and Adam Sol. To Lyn Miller-Lachmann and Nicolle Lustgarten for checking my Spanish. (Any remaining mistakes are my own.) To Semareh Al-Hillal and the entire team at Groundwood, my newest community, for believing in this book, and to Sam Kalda for his perfect cover. To my agent, Jacqui Lipton at Raven Quill Literary Agency, and Storm Literary. Another thank you to Shelley Tanaka — advisor, mentor, friend and now, editor. How lucky is that?

  To my Jewish community: thank you for nourishing my body and soul for as long as I can remember.

  To my friends and family, the most important community of all: thank you to Lisa Robinson, friend, colleague, and fellow second-career writer, for her cheerleading. To Shirley Katz — you know why. To Miriam Fangot, for keeping it all together. Thank you to my parents and sister for everything — I love you guys! To my in-laws, for the unwavering confidence. And most importantly, thank you to my husband, Jay, and my three children, for helping me make time to write and for seeing me as a writer before I did. That was probably the most important part.

  Tziporah (Tzippy) Cohen was born and raised in New York and spent eighteen years in Boston before landing in Toronto, where she now lives with her husband, three kids, two cats and one dog. Many years after graduating from Harvard Medical School, she received an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She now splits her time between writing and working as an oncology/palliative care psychiatrist. Visit her at tziporahcohen.com and follow her on Twitter @tzippymfa.

  Groundwood Books is an independent Canadian children’s publisher based in Toronto. Our authors and illustrators are highly acclaimed both in Canada and internationally, and our books are loved by children around the world. We look for books that are unusual; we are not afraid of books that are difficult or potentially controversial; and we are particularly committed to publishing books for and about children whose experiences of the world are under-represented elsewhere.

  Groundwood Books respectfully acknowledges that the land on which we operate is the traditional territory of many nations, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples.

  Groundwood Books is proud to be a part of House of Anansi Press.