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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, I owe heartfelt thanks once again to my friend, Thomas Gansevoort, whose knowledge of crafts and the perils attached to them has saved my grits time after time throughout both The Circle of Magic and The Circle Opens quartets. I owe him a particularly large debt for his guidance with regard to the perils of glassmaking. I owe thanks at a researcher’s distance to William S. Ellis’s Glass: From the First Mirror to Fiber Optics, the Story of the Substance that Changed the World and to Christina Schulman, who showed me the book. The Circle Opens is also the result of years of reading about the acts and psychology of serial criminals in books by writers such as Jack Olsen and Anne Rule and in the groundbreaking study Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives by Robert K. Ressler, Ann W. Burgess, and John E. Douglas.
Closer to home, I owe tremendous debts of gratitude. First and foremost, I thank my editorial staff at Scholastic — editrix Anne Dunn, who inspired and signed up the quartet and who helped me to shape Magic Steps; editrix Kate Egan, who took over where Anne left off and has been a support, mainstay, and guide through the rest of the quartet; Elizabeth Szabla, who has stepped into the breach with able, gracious assistance and support when Anne and Kate were not there; and Jennifer Rees, line editrix and able hand-holder for wifty authors — and at Scholastic in England, to editrixes Holly Skeet and Kirsty Skidmore, whose intelligent commentary and suggestions did so much to influence the final shape of the quartet. My thanks also to my eagle-eyed agent Craig Tenney,
who always has cogent points to make; mapmaker to the scale-challenged, Rick Robinson; to my beloved spouse-creature, Tim, whose creative fingerprints are all over each and every book I write, including this one; and to my friend, Raquel, who also gives me ideas and keeps me steady. Without these people, Shatterglass and the entire Circle Opens quartet, would either not exist or have a very different shape and intent.
Last, but never least, I thank teachers, particularly those in grade school, middle school, high school, and college, who taught me what good teaching really is. Our teachers are never paid enough and never thanked enough, yet they create the future when they shape the people they instruct, guide, and encourage. No book I write would exist if it weren’t for a steady succession of teachers who gave me hope and the belief that I had something positive to offer.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TAMORA PIERCE is a New York Times best-selling writer whose fantasy books include The Circle of Magic, The Song of the Lioness, The Immortals, and The Protector of the Small quartets as well as Magic Steps, Street Magic, and Cold Fire. She says of her beginnings as an author that “after discovering fantasy and science fiction in the seventh grade, I was hooked on writing. I tried to write the same kind of stories I read, except with teenaged girl heroes — not too many of those around in the 1960s.”
In her Circle of Magic quartet, Ms. Pierce introduced the unforgettable mages-in-training who are now four years older in The Circle Opens — Sandry, Briar, Daja, and Tris. She began the new quartet at the urging of her many readers, who encouraged her through letters and e-mails to explore the mages’ lives further. She chose their next turning point to be when they each acquire their first students in magecraft while still in their early teens.
Ms. Pierce lives in New York City with her husband, Tim Liebe, their cats (Scrap, Pee Wee, Gremlin, and Ferret), two parakeets (Timon and the Junior Birdman), and a “floating population of rescued wildlife.” Her Web address is www.tamora-pierce.com, and she is active on the discussion web so co-founded, www.SheroesCentral.com.
