The following people and places were invaluable in helping this book happen. Firstly, thanks to our publisher, Kamera Books, and in particular Hannah Patterson and Ion Mills – for sharing our vision and for their patience! And thanks to Anne Hudson, for doing a great job with editing.
We’re very grateful to Bournemouth University’s Fusion Fund for supporting travel and research to Australia and the US, which was also invaluable for reducing the number of late-night Skype sessions during the evolution of this book. And to RMIT University for its generous acknowledgement of the time needed to research and write.
Special thanks go to Linda Seger, who introduced us in the first place at Carluccio’s restaurant in London – a great place for a chumcom meet cute!
Thanks also to Hal Ackerman, Ben Cookson, Julian Farino, Gene Wayne Hart, Andy Horton, Suya Lee, Jeff Reno and Stayci Taylor for sharing their time, insights and thoughts about all things romcom.
Huge thanks to Jule Selbo for agreeing to write the Foreword – we couldn’t have a better screenwriting genre expert on hand!
We’d also like to thank our families, friends, students, colleagues and collaborators for helping to make this book happen. Together, they’ve offered us moral support and guidance, inspiration and reflection, and knowledge that has influenced and transformed our thinking about romantic comedy screenplays and how to talk to others about them.