I wish to thank Fremantle Press for their faith in my first novel, and for including me in their fine history of local story-telling. Special thanks to Georgia Richter for her astute and meticulous editing, for her patience and good humour. Thanks, too, are due to Amanda Curtin, Linda Martin, Josephine Taylor and Terri-ann White, for feedback on a much earlier version of the novel. And thank you to Nada Backovic for her elegant, lovely cover. Thank you to Michelle de Kretser and Ryan O’Neill, two writers I greatly admire, for their generous endorsements. As always, I am indebted to Dan Midalia, for earning the money, conquering technology and cooking the dinners. Most of all, I thank him for his love.
Thank you to Fremantle Press for permission to quote from Dorothy Hewett’s poem ‘Wanderlust’ from Wheatlands (edited by Dorothy Hewett and John Kinsella, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 2000). Thank you to Rosemary Sayer for permission to use the story of an asylum seeker recounted in her wonderful book More to the Story: Conversations with Refugees (Margaret River Press, 2015). And of course, special thanks to the asylum seeker in question.
Finally, thank you to the Uniting Church, Steve Biddulph, three hundred community groups and children from across Australia, all of whom were instrumental in creating the deeply affecting SIEV X Memorial in Canberra.