Do you read dedications?

A good book dedication can tell you more about the book and author than the jacket blurb. Dorothy Parker, the renowned wit, had this to say at the front of her book, Here Lies:

To Alan, without whose help this book would have been finished in half the time.

That dedication gives me all the feels. I hear ya, Dorothy.

Some authors use their dedication for revenge, such as romance writer, Emily Goodwin who dedicated Twisted, to her ex with these words:

You are the most disappointing man and biggest coward I have ever known. And now the whole world knows too.

Yikes. That’s some high-level trolling.

I personally like a dedication that makes me smile, like this one by Matthew Klein (No Way Back):

For Mom. (Just skip over the sex scenes please)

Not everyone reads book dedications, since many e-readers open the book after the front matter, but a few readers have mentioned dedications to me, so I thought it would be fun to dig into them.

Like Ms. Parker, my family is always a big source of inspiration, as mentioned in the dedication for A Knack for Metal and Bone:



This is a particularly timely one because Louis is retiring at the end of this month. Yep, I will be the sole bread-winner in the family. This might be a good time to suggest that you buy my books. Give poor, retiring Louis some peace of mind so he can focus on building me a writing nook in the woods.

For those of you worry that I might get the retiring bug, I promise, I have no plans to put down my pen any time soon. Louis is a few years older than me. And, do writers ever really retire anyway? It’s more a way of life than a job. Besides I still have way too many stories to write.

One of my favorite Valkyrie Bestiary Dedications is for Grimalkins Don’t Purr.



It’s no big secret that I am a huge animal lover and advocate, but of all Terra’s creatures, cats hold a special place in my heart. I’ve always wanted to write a talking cat, so Grimalkins was really fun. And of course, I had to dedicate it to all the kitties who inspired Grim. My heart kitty, Koko isn’t on that list because she only came about in 2023, two years after this one was published. But she’s there in spirit.

Black Annis Year deals with the trials of a reluctant animal rescuer, and all of the animals in that story are inspired by my adventures in animal husbandry and rescue work. So it needed the appropriate dedication.



Animal rescuers are truly a breed apart. They are tireless, selfless and find value in all creatures, even the ones who don’t know how to accept help. I am proud to call myself a rescuer and appreciate the work of rescuers all over the world.

The last dedication I want to highlight is for Dragons Don’t Eat Meat. It sounds simple, but it’s my most heartfelt dedication. This was the book that began my writing career, the one that let me give up my day job to focus entirely on writing. And it was a long time coming. I wrote 4 complete drafts before finding one that worked. Many people were involved in its initial stages—family, friends, writing critique partners and more. But the one person who was always my biggest fan (besides my mom, of course) was my friend Larry Weller.



I met Larry when I was nineteen-years-old. He was my English Professor at John Abbott College in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec. If you’ve read the Valkyrie Bestiary, those names might sound familiar. Kyra lives in Sayntanne, a corruption of Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue and she often visits the Abbott’s Agora, the market that takes up the old campus in post Flood War times. I took the market’s name from our old student lounge that was called the Agora.

Despite the twenty-year age gap, Larry and I struck up a friendship over our love for literature, and for the next thirty years, Larry and I met whenever I was in Montreal. We talked about books, music, movies, politics, family, students and more. He came to my wedding. He taught my stepson and saw my daughter grow up. And, most importantly, he made me laugh. 

Larry had been teaching at John Abbott College since the 70s. If you were one of the lucky students to take his class, his words stayed with you long after graduation. He had a way of engaging even those who didn’t love literature with his big laugh and ribald humor. His door was always open to his students. He enjoyed watching young minds become enamored by words, and he was also a big student advocate. 

Students would send him letters years after they left John Abbot College to tell him how he made a difference in their lives. I wrote a short story called “Larry’s Shrine” when he received a letter from a student who emigrated to Japan and built a shrine to Larry Weller in the land of the rising sun. He was just that kind of teacher, and I am forever thankful that I landed in his class. 

Over the years, I moved from Montreal to Toronto, then to the USA. Our lunches became too infrequent, but we kept up by email. Larry would send me his poems—poems that he thought unworthy of inflicting on the general population—and I would send him chapters of my WIP. We still met for lunch whenever I was in Montreal. Larry often regaled me with funny stories about teaching in a different era. He also divulged interesting tidbits about the college, such as the tunnels under the dorm rooms that become a secret lab in book 2. Those tunnels actually exist, and were a fun curiosity to write into the book.

I counted Larry as my best friend. He was my biggest cheerleader and early beta reader. He often joked that I knew where all his bodies were buried, but I was only allowed to spill his secrets in his eulogy.

That joke got less funny in 2019 when Larry was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer.

Dragons Don’t Eat Meat was published in August of 2020. Larry passed away in April of that year, at the height of the first COVID lockdowns. Pandemic restrictions meant that there was no memorial service. He would have been thrilled to know that The Valkyrie Bestiary became such a huge success. Even when I didn’t believe it, he knew that I could make it as a writer and that confidence remains a shield at my back. The few simple words of the dedication in Dragons are a gateway to a whole world of emotion, respect and love that I never got to say in his eulogy.

I have more dedications, of course, but I’ll stop there. 

Do you read dedications? What are some that really struck you as fun, poignant, interesting or just plain weird? I’d love to see them. You can respond right in the comments.

 

 

It’s easy to summarize this week’s book fairs. They’re all FREE! That’s right, check out these series starters and freebies in all different genres. ​

The Witch at the Edge of the Wood
by Liz Delton 

Velina has escaped the workhouse on the hunt for one thing: the witch who can grant her wish to live a normal life. Born with silver hair and noticeably pointy ears, she's passed from workhouse to workhouse since she can remember—shunned for her mysterious heritage.

But the witch’s cottage she finds at the edge of the wood is abandoned, and as soon as she starts making herself at home, someone else comes calling: a noble with a wish of his own. With the promise of his coin, she agrees to help him, when she starts noticing something strange about the cottage.

Velina must find a way to help the noble, and others who come calling—but can she help herself?