I would like to thank Richard Jolley for many helpful telephone conversations while I was compiling this book. Brian Dibble and Barbara Millech have both supplied valuable information about Elizabeth’s life, and I am especially grateful to Barbara for the piece entitled ‘The Little Dance in Writing’, which I would not have known existed without her advice. Paul Brunton, Senior Curator at the Mitchell Library, allowed me to look through the unrestricted material that Elizabeth has lodged there, and kindly copied early photographs for me. Finally, Elizabeth’s agent Jenny Darling was always encouraging throughout the process of putting this book together.
The essays, extracts and poems in this book were originally published, sometimes in slightly altered form, in the places below. I would like to thank the publishers and authors who have given permission for reproduction. In a few cases my efforts to trace the provenance of an essay were unsuccessful, for which I apologise in advance. The publisher would be pleased to hear from anyone in this regard.
‘A Scattered Catalogue of Consolation’ is from Joyce Nakamura, (ed.) Contemporary Authors, 1E © 1991, Gale, a part of Cengage Learning, Inc., reproduced by permission.
‘Sisters’ as ‘My Sister Dancing’ in the anthology Sisters, edited by Drusilla Modjeska, HarperCollins, Sydney, 1993
‘A Summer to Remember’ as ‘Outlines and Shadings’ in The Age,
6 January 1995
‘The Silent Night of Snowfall’ in The Age, 24 December 1994
‘One Christmas Knitting’ in Woman in a Lampshade, Penguin,
Melbourne, 1983
‘Paper Children’ in Woman in a Lampshade, Penguin, Melbourne, 1983
‘Bathroom Dance’ in My Father’s Moon, Penguin, Melbourne, 1989
‘Black Country Farm’ broadcast by the BBC in 1991–92. A slightly different version appeared in The Georges’ Wife, Penguin, Melbourne, 1993
‘Motherhood’ in New Woman, October 1992
‘Fairfields’ as ‘Frederick the Great Returns to Fairfields’ in the New Yorker, 22 July 1985. It is almost identical to the opening of My Father’s Moon
‘A Small Fragment of the Earth’ as ‘Life’s Colors Shimmer in Western Heat’ in The Age, 2 May 1987
‘Pear Tree Dance’ in Woman in a Lampshade, Penguin, Melbourne, 1983
‘Only Connect’ in Central Mischief, Penguin, Melbourne, 1992
‘Wheat Belt Smash’ is an extract from Foxybaby, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1985
‘The Goose Path: A Meditation’ in Encounter, London, March 1989; in Gone Bush, edited by Roger McDonald, Transworld, Sydney, 1990; and in Central Mischief, Penguin, 1992
‘The Will to Write’ in The Australian, 1993
‘The Little Dance in Writing’ in Cite, Issue 1, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Summer 2002
‘Quick at Meals, Quick at Work’ in The Age, 13 July 1993
‘Friends and Friendship’ in The Australian, January 1997
‘Manchester Repair’ in the Independent Monthly, 1990
‘Happiness and Restoration of the Spirit’ as ‘Happiness: The Lesson of the Goose’ in The Bulletin, 25 December 1990
All the poems appeared in Diary of a Weekend Farmer, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, Fremantle, 1993
The quote on page 83 is from Sonnet 60 by William Shakespeare
The quote on page 130 is from ‘The Wind Among the Reeds’ by W. B. Yeats
The quotes on pages 135 and 138 are from ‘The Scholar Gypsy’ by Matthew Arnold
The poem ‘Rebecca in a Mirror’ on pages 150–1 is used by kind permission of the author, Judith Rodriguez
The quote on pages 264–5 is from ’Tis by Frank McCourt and is reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd © Frank McCourt
The quote on page 274 is from ‘Gloire de Dijon’ by D. H. Lawrence