Any Other Place

by Michael Croley

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  These stories have appeared, sometimes in different form, in Narrative, Blackbird, Ocean State Review, Still: The Journal, The Pinch, Catamaran, Catapult and Kenyon Review Online.

  I DIDN’T ALWAYS want to be a writer. I wanted to be an astronaut first. My dad would take me to the small chain bookstore in our hometown, and I would pick up all the books I could on space, the moon landing, the space shuttle, NASA. At home, Dad and I read them together. Later, I’d attend Space Camp after winning an essay contest to attend sponsored by a local civic organization. Maybe that was the first parting of ways with the original dream, of writing being something that interested me nearly as much. Well, that and my experience at Space Camp proving not to be all that interesting or fun. But when I think about being a boy and wanting to be an astronaut, I’m struck by two things. The first is that it wasn’t a fad or notion of being a boy but something very real for me. I grieved when the Challenger exploded and became more determined to become an astronaut. The second is that both my parents encouraged me. It wasn’t just the trips to the bookstore and the library to research space, it was the way both of my parents actively helped and researched with me. Whatever my dreams were, they were both right there. They never steered me away from what I aspired to. As long as I put in the work and time, they would put in just as much to make sure my life was the one I wanted. That’s why this book is as much a product of them as it is of me. I’m not sure how you thank someone for giving you the courage and the opportunity to pursue your dreams, but Mom and Dad, you made mine possible and you never made them seem impossible, which, as a parent now, I understand is the greatest gift you gave me. Thanks to my brother Tim, who put up with a cranky and sullen unemployed early-twenty-something for two years, paying the lion’s share of our rent and grocery bill while I worked part-time jobs and wrote stories. All he said to me was, “If you want to be a writer, go write. I’ll take care of everything else.” And he did. He always has from the time we were boys until I was an adult, and when hard times came again for me later, he was there to help me through once more, pick me up when I was down, and show me that I could withstand and bear more than I thought. This book is also a product of his faith and support in me.

  After my family, there are so many people to thank that I feel like I could go on saying thank you forever, for longer than the thirteen stories in this collection. My teacher Mary Ellen Miller at Western Kentucky University changed my life. She noticed my writing and encouraged it, mentored me, read every page I wrote as an undergrad with interest and care and a deft hand. She did not live to see this book’s publication, which is one of the few regrets I have in this life—that it took me so long to get a book out in the world for her to see—but I would not be the person or writer I am without her. I’m thankful each day that she was the professor who walked through the door of my Intro to Literature class freshman year. Otherwise, I’d be practicing law and wondering what might have been. Dan Myers, Charley Pride, Patti Minter, and Cassandra Pinnick were also professors and mentors who went beyond the call for me, who still influence how I teach and mentor my own students now. Thanks for giving up so much of your precious time to me. Ned and Elizabeth Stuckey-French were my North Stars in graduate school. Great writers who became great friends. They kept me between the ditches and made me better at every step. Ned, breaded tenderloin awaits us. Mark Winegardner pushed me harder than any teacher I’ve had and showed me the kind of work I needed to do in order to be the writer I wanted to be. David Kirby and Barbara Hamby kept me sated and sane and were a model of graciousness—as well as devastating good looks!—and kindness I’ll never forget.

  Thanks to the editors who believed in my work and published these stories, particularly, Tom Jenks and Carol Edgarian at Narrative, Mary Flinn at Blackbird, Nicole Chung at Catapult, and David Lynn at the Kenyon Review. And thanks to Mike Curtis as well, whose kindnesses kept me afloat when I wanted to drown. Thanks as well to the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ohio Arts Council, and the Kentucky Arts Council. All provided much-needed financial support and encouragement at critical stages in my development.

  I am fortunate to have more mentors than any one man should, and I want to make sure Steve Yarbrough, Townsend Luddington, Hal Crowther, Tom Rankin, and Jill McCorkle all know how much I appreciate them—on and off the page. As a young man, I was always observing you as a way of being in this life. To Lee Smith, I would have never made it this far without you. I am a failure at being the kind of warm and generous mentor and person you are, but I do try to follow your example. I hope this book is worthy of all the time you have given to me over the years. And to Richard Bausch, where to begin? I thieve from you every time I set foot in a classroom, using your words, your careful consideration of this writing life, as instruction for my own students. After all, nothing I’ve come up with on my own seems better than how you put it to me when I was your student. Thanks for the laughs, the drinks, and teaching me the life. Every day as your student and friend has been an education and more than I could have hoped for when we first met.

  Mark Carothers, Kyle McGown, and Ben Nunery, thanks for being there at the beginning and all the days since. Bill Eville, Ali Salerno, Quentin James, Zach Martin, and Jason Nemec—a Hall of Fame caliber graduate school cohort—thanks for keeping the lonely days at bay and the writing on the level year in and year out. Zack Adcock and Wendy Sumner-Winter helped me through Memphis. Dave Lucas is my favorite poet, in part because he has fed me the most. To him and Amy Keating, thanks for making Cleveland feel like home, for being the best of friends. Phil Metres taught me how to be a professor when I was a kid walking into my first job, and his steady hand has kept guiding me ever since. My colleagues at Denison University, Margot Singer, Peter Granbois, David Baker, Ann Townsend, Jack Shuler, and James Weaver, have never wavered in their support for my writing and teaching—cheerleaders all. I’m fortunate to have found myself in your good company and at a university that values our work in and out of the classroom. Josh Finnell, never forget lunch is from 11:30–1:30 at Huffman. Pizza for dessert. Chris and Kelly Molloy thanks for being on the journey with me. And to Silas House, the first writer I ever knew. You’re my other brother in this life. I always have your back.

  To Lynn York and Robin Miura, thanks for bringing this book into your fold and careful hands. I couldn’t have landed at a better place with better people. It’s a great gift to work with a press that is doing so much to support writers and great writing.

  When I got engaged, a student of mine asked me how I knew Mary was the one. It was an easy answer. She taught me what real love is. Mary, I hope you can count on me the way I have come to count on you. You helped give me a life I thought I might never have, that had passed me by. I am rich in gratitude to many people, but you’re the only one I share all my joy with. I love you.