After so many years of procrastination, I’m still slightly in shock to find I’ve written a novel! I owe thanks to so many, but first and foremost to my agent Millie Hoskins at United Literary Agency, who believed in this story from the get go, and always has my back. Millie, I feel so incredibly fortunate to have found you!
Thank you to Hannah Westland for picking up my manuscript in the midst of a bout of COVID, and seeing enough in it to allow Neef and Danny to come to life. Thank you to the wonderful team at Serpent’s Tail—in particular Mehar Anaokar, Luke Brown, Emily Frisella and Drew Jerrison. Thank you also to the forensic eyes of SJ Forder and Mandy Green.
Huge thanks to Molly Friedrich and Hannah Brattesani at The Friedrich Agency for taking Wild Ground on its journey stateside. Thank you to the team at Penguin Random House USA—Clio Seraphim, your love and enthusiasm for this story has blown me away. I am so grateful to you! Thank you also to Rachel Parker, Madison Dettlinger, Caitlin McKenna, Leila Tejani, Windy Dorresteyn, Maria Braeckel and the many, many others behind the scenes who have breathed life into Wild Ground.
Putting pen to paper with any sort of real intention has always been my downfall, and it is only thanks to the discipline and structure afforded to me by the Year of the Novel course at Writing Center NSW that I was able to finally get my words on a page. Thank you, therefore, to my teacher, mentor and friend, Emily Maguire, and my writing comrades Clare Fletcher and Sarah Percival. Wild Ground would never have got started, let alone finished, without you!
Britain is a multicultural country, and it’s important to me that my writing reflects this. As such, this story includes characters from a diverse range of backgrounds. Whilst I can never claim to fully understand the complexities of prejudice and discrimination faced by those outside of my own lived experience, I hope I have done my due diligence in listening, reading and educating myself, and that my exploration of these issues has been done with sensitivity. I am especially grateful to Desiree Reynolds and Daryoush Haj Najafi for your thoughtfulness, generosity and guidance. Thank you also to my long-time friend Helen Early for your insights into psychiatric care in the UK.
This is a story about first love, and it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the first person I ever felt for, SB. Although you’re no longer with us, I thought of you often when writing this. Keep smiling up there. You are not forgotten.
Huge big thanks to my boy tribe, Sonny, Rafferty and Jesse, for allowing me many a weekend and evening of reprieve from wrestling and trampoline-jumping so that I could hide away in a quiet room and scribble down words. Everything I do is for you.
And of course, to Andy. You have always been my champion, my confidence and my confidant. Thank you for believing in me. I love you.