AUTHOR’S NOTE. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

AUTHOR’S NOTE

I learned about paper towns by coming across one during a road trip my junior year of college. My traveling companion and I kept driving up and down the same desolate stretch of highway in South Dakota, searching for this town the map promised existed — as I recall, the town was called Holen. Finally, we pulled into a driveway and knocked on a door. The friendly woman who answered had been asked the question before. She explained that the town we were seeking existed only on the map.

The story of Agloe, New York — as outlined in this book — is mostly true. Agloe began as a paper town created to protect against copyright infringement. But then people with those old Esso maps kept looking for it, and so someone built a store, making Agloe real. The business of cartography has changed a lot since Otto G. Lindberg and Ernest Alpers invented Agloe. But many mapmakers still include paper towns as copyright traps, as my bewildering experience in South Dakota attests.

The store that was Agloe no longer stands. But I believe that if we were to put it back on our maps, someone would eventually rebuild it.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank:

— My parents, Sydney and Mike Green. I never thought I would say this, but: thank you for raising me in Florida.

— My brother and favorite collaborator, Hank Green.

— My mentor, Ilene Cooper.

— Everyone at Dutton, but particularly my incomparable editor, Julie Strauss-Gabel, Lisa Yoskowitz, Sarah Shumway, Stephanie Owens Lurie, Christian F& #252; nfhausen, Rosanne Lauer, Irene Vandervoort, and Steve Meltzer.

— My delightfully tenacious agent, Jodi Reamer.

— The Nerdfighters, who have taught me so much about the meaning of awesome.

— My writing partners Emily Jenkins, Scott Westerfeld, Justine Larbalestier, and Maureen Johnson.

— Two particularly helpful books I read about disappearance while researching Paper Towns: William Dear’s The Dungeon Master and Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild. I am also grateful to Cecil Adams, the big brain behind “The Straight Dope, ” whose short article on copyright traps is — so far as I know — the definitive resource on the subject.

— My grandparents: Henry and Billie Grace Goodrich, and William and Jo Green.

— Emily Johnson, whose readings of this book were invaluable; Joellen Hosler, the best therapist a writer could ask for; cousins-in-law Blake and Phyllis Johnson; Brian Lipson and Lis Rowinski at Endeavor; Katie Else; Emily Blejwas, who joined me on that trip to the paper town; Levin O’Connor, who taught me most of what I know about funny; Tobin Anderson and Sean, who took me urban exploring in Detroit; school librarian Susan Hunt and all those who risk their jobs to stand against censorship; Shannon James; Markus Zusak; John Mauldin and my wonderful parents-in-law, Connie and Marshall Urist.

— Sarah Urist Green, my first reader and first editor and best friend and favorite teammate.

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