Emma Sweeney: My first readers are my agent and editor.
Maria Rosa Menocal: This has varied over the years but for the last several, and all through writing this book, it has been the person I am closest too, my "companion."
Mona Golabek: My first readers were family and close friends. As most of the characters in the story are no longer alive, I did not have legal issues.
Tony Perrottet: My girlfriend (now wife) Lesley is my first and harshest editor --- she reads everything I write very closely, and weeds out the more inane flights of fancy and rotten jokes. I don't really feel the need to show my work to anyone else: One good reader is enough to give you some objectivity about your writing, I find. If I started showing a MS to all and sundry, the conflicting opinions would muddy my thoughts. Having said that, I did actually show the first part of Route 66 AD to some friends prior to publication --- but I had already done a lot of work on it before then, it was pretty well honed, and knew I wouldn't lose sight of my own judgments (luckily, they only suggested minor changes)!
