Errors. I make errors. I make stacks and stacks of errors.

But usually not so many as are in CAGE OF STARS. Some are minute and intentional, such as the real nature of St. George, Utah. I wanted to portray it as a more REMOTE place than it really is. But some are unintententional, such as not knowing that all future children are "sealed" to their parents during marriage and only baptized later. There are other errors that we simply didn't catch -- that make me want to cut off my own eyelashes, such as having Grandmas alive and then dead and then alive.

It makes me feel contrite, and like a slob, and I am not.

Some of this is necessay in a novel -- as a friend once said when a portion of her tale let the husband sell their farm while the wife was temporarily in jail, which could not have happened in a community-property state, "It's fiction!"

I do the same thing.

In that friend's novel, Iit wouldn't have worked if they'd had a discussion about the sale: It was meant to be a betrayal. So you have to forgive her that trespass as part of the wonderr of that book. In my next book, how far and fast a sailboat can drift without power is a matter of weather and location: I simply had to pick a way and follow it. It might not be accurate in every situation, but it is the choice in the universe of that book. That's not the kind of mistake to which I'm referring, nor am I asking for comments on how someone SHOULD have acted in a given situation. That's an author's choice.

But I don't like to offend people with errors, even if I offend them with notions. And so those of you who notice errors in CAGE OF STARS -- those who are Mormons and those who are not -- and who care about such things, please write to me care of this website and I'll incorporate your changes as best I can into the large paperback edition of the novel, out next May.

Large format paperbarcks are what most readers will see, anyhow, since book clubs like to use them. So if you WANT this novel more accurate to reflect the sense if not the geography of Mormon life, help me instead of blustering about it and I'll do as you ask.

Though most Mormons were very positive about this book, I want everyone to be -- well not EVERYONE; people who don't like my writing will always be displeased -- but to do the best I can. You have months, until perhaps Thanksgiving, to send me your comments. So please do.

And I'll be grateful.

Jackie M.