by Austin Aslan
I’m grateful to Dr. Holoua Stender, David Haas, and Joe Camacho for permission to use their beautiful song lyrics. I’m indebted to Dr. Laura Hufford for responding to all my midnight texts about antibiotics. I hope you’ve stockpiled enough for your family, Laura! Thank you once again, Alex Bennett, Liz Chamberlain, and Jenn Ridgeway for faithfully reading all those drafts and for giving me such perfect feedback and essential advice. Authors Joshua David Bellin, Jennifer J. Stewart, and Jaye Robin Brown, thank you so much for taking an early look and telling me what I needed to hear.
I owe everything else to my wife. Clare, I write for you, and this is your story first. You put up with so much to allow me the space to be creative and to write. Thank you for everything. Everything. You are my better half by far, and I adore you to the end of the world and back.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
AUSTIN ASLAN was inspired to write The Islands at the End of the World and The Girl at the Center of the World while living with his wife and two children on the Big Island of Hawai`i, where he earned a master’s degree in tropical conservation biology at the University of Hawai`i at Hilo. A National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, he can often be found exploring the wilds of northern Arizona and camping in a tent on a punctured air mattress. In other lives, Austin drove ambulances way too fast, served as an ecotourism Peace Corps Volunteer in a Honduran cloud forest, and managed a variety of local, state, and federal issue campaigns. Austin loves to travel widely, photograph nature, and laugh. Follow him on Twitter at @Laustinspace.
