Requiescat in pace

The book I dedicated to her.
Catherwood (Farrar, Straus &
Giroux, 1996)

I'm not much on mentioning deaths that matter to me in a public way, but I want to pay a last tribute to Nancy Potts Coward, the most important teacher in my life. My English teacher for three classes in high school, and Composition teacher for three, she always encouraged me, had an enormous faith in my abilities as a