The Nation We Live In. Acknowledgments

--I'd like to thank my nuclear and extended family for still caring about me and loving me, even after all of these years, now meandering through adulthood. I'd especially like to thank my deceased mother, Andrea Roberts McGee for her unwavering love, empathy and overall goodness. Mom, I miss you and will love you forever in perpetuity.

--I'd like to thank and profess my admiration for the largest independent Book Store in Texas, Book People for being fantastic. The 6th and Lamar Downtown Austin store, staff, ambiance, cafe, ongoing in-store author talks and events, plus their indie publisher advocacy is appreciated. 

--I'd like to thank Ron Seybold, the impromptu hired and paid Editor for this book. Ron is welcoming, fun, easy to work with, professional, referable, affordable and timely. Our think tank, face-to-face sessions and conversations at BookPeople were enjoyable.

-I'd like to thank Aysa Blue in New York City for the book cover art, interior page layout, crafting and design. She made the self publishing process much smoother, less-stressful and navigable. She said, "George, you are a writer, you focus on that."

--I'd like to thank Google's free Blogger site and program for allowing me to creatively write and create. This "Nation We Live In", book is derived from my online Liberating Rants blogspot. My favorite aspect of the back-end blogger site is monitoring the blog's stats section. It helps display which blog post and topics elicited the most engagement and reads. Check out the Liberating Rants blog, if you feel like seeing the unedited raw versions of these essays and unfiltered short stories. Or if you resonate with online blog commenting.

--Some other Authors and Books I've personally read, picked up, admired or perhaps been subconsciously influenced by were; Kitchen Confidential, by Anthony Bourdain. Killing Yourself to Live by Chuck Klosterman. Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fischer. Austin to ATX, the hippies, pickers, slackers, and geeks who transformed the Capitol of Texas, by Joe Nick Patoski. The End of White Christian America by Robert P. Jones. The Silent Market, Lessons from a Soft Selling Life, by my dad, George Sears McGee. Make Your Bed, Little Things that can change your life and Maybe the World, Admiral William H. McRaven. Truth worth Telling, a Reporter's search for meaning in the stories of our times, Scott Pelley. Open, an Autobiography by Andrea Agassi