Acknowledging Writing Partners

Abstract

Very often when I read acknowledgments, I feel overcome.Especially when reading something like Donna Qualley's final note in her acknowledgments for Turns of Thought: "Finally, I want to acknowledge the important, complex, and at times disconcerting influence of my Grandmother Qualley.From her I learned how reading and writing are processes we can use to try to make sense of our worlds and ourselves.Twenty-five years after her death, I am still using reading and writing to make sense of her legacy to me" (xi).Qualley blends literacies with feeling, family, identity, loss and its aftereffects.I learn something about what drives her when I read this acknowledgment, something inaccessible in the rest of the book.Likewise, familiar texts that have become my thinking pals over the years, like Qualley's, surprised me as I got to know them differently, reading not for their main arguments but for their paratexts.When reading the stories about writing itself, I found that the worlds around texts frequently came into full bloom.The most pleasurable part of writing this book was the time it granted me to read attentively the framing texts of others' books.In prefaces, introductions, dedications, and acknowledgments I have learned about writers' troubles, preoccupations, musical tastes, relationships, challenges, eating habits, animal companions, exercise routines, best friends, personal losses, and much more.Sometimes I found myself enjoying the frames more than the work they border (examples withheld), a feeling I suspect others share, as acknowledgments show us how writing gets made, or, not necessarily the same thing, how writers narrate the creation of writing.We also catch glimpses of how writers position themselves in relation to everything that surrounds and sprawls across writing.Here's Anne Ruggles Gere: "Cindy and Sam tolerated my long sessions with the computer but insisted that I keep up with their regular routines and join them for bike rides and skiing" (xiv).Lester Faigley's family gave him "the greatest support" and "space to finish the project" that became Fragments of Rationality despite misgivings about its content (xiii).John Schilb describes himself as "one of those writers, more numerous than you may think, who need music playing while they sit at the computer keyboard.Indeed, it is fair to say that many composers and performers have contributed to the making of this book, albeit x Preface Though I don't address the role of children in composing within these pages, I wrote this book with children near much of the time and wouldn't have it any other way.I'll always associate this book with Giovanni's guitar playing and Lou's soccer ball smacking the downstairs wall.Great music to write by.Also on the home front, I'm extremely grateful to Gary Weissman for his steady support, advice, amazing food, and near constant, welcome hilarity.When I thought I was done, he gently told me that I had to reorganize the first two chapters.This took the wind out of my sails, but I knew he was right and am thankful for his honesty.His expert reading and exacting feedback helped me clarify just about every sentence in here, or at least made me question what struck me as self evident, hopefully producing better thinking, better prose.Gary and I have been writing together for almost 20 years now; it seems to be working out!Without the willing participants who completed my survey and contributed photos and narratives to the Facebook group, "Composing with Animals," chapter four would not have been possible in its present form.Big thanks for the time, care, and energy of all of my respondents, especially in this age of seemingly constant surveying.Likewise, participants at the 2014 Dartmouth Summer Seminar on Composition Research, especially Christiane Donahue, Neal Lerner, Chuck Bazerman, and Mya Poe, offered excellent advice and suggestions that directly shaped my research design and analysis.I'm so grateful for that humbling re-education in research methods and the supportive, smart community at Dartmouth.External reviewers provided astonishingly generous and useful advice for creating a more coherent manuscript that progressively develops chapter-by-chapter.I don't know how I would have managed to make this book without their guidance.Editors Susan McLeod and Michael Palmquist offered productive commentary that helped me frame the book, unpack buried assumptions that informed my claims, and generally think more critically about audience expectations.Thanks for your belief and patience (all told, this project took three years).Thanks, too, to colleagues and students at Kansas State University and Ohio University, where I presented early versions of chapter three and gained insightful feedback that aided my subsequent drafting and revising.Special shout-out to Cydney Alexis and Mara Holt who organized those visits and offered smart feedback and excellent company.A Taft Summer Research Fellowship in 2013 and a

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