Tilt (16 page)

The author gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and the City of Ottawa in the preparation of this manuscript. Thanks, too, to Shelley Tanaka for fitting both her considerable heart and head under her editorial hat in steering me through various drafts, and to my friends and colleagues at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, especially Louise Hawes, whose brilliant lecture on desire set this story in motion. Many thanks as well to publisher Patsy Aldana, my agent Ellen Levine and to other friends and family, whose comments and suggestions were so helpful.

ALAN CUMYN
is the author of many acclaimed novels for both children and adults.
The
Secret Life of Owen Skye
won the Mr. Christie's Award and was nominated for the Governor General's Award, the Ruth Schwartz Award and the Pacific Northwest Libraries Association Young Reader's Choice Award.
After Sylvia
was nominated for the prestigious TD Canadian Children's Literature Award, and
Dear Sylvia
was shortlisted for the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children Award. Alan is also a two-time winner of the Ottawa Book Award, and his novel
The Famished Lover
was longlisted for the Giller Prize and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

Alan teaches in the MFA program at Vermont College of Fine Arts and is a past chair of the Writers' Union of Canada. He lives in Ottawa.

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