I like big books and I cannot lie. My first thanks is to you, Michael Heyward, for letting me write them. To have such a generous publisher is a gift, if not a miracle. Heartfelt thanks also to the stupendously talented crew at Text, who work so hard on design, publicity and marketing, especially Kirsty Wilson, Alice Lewinsky, Jane Watkins, Stef Italia and Imogen Stubbs. Thank you, Chong, for the incredible cover; making suffrage sexy again. I am blessed to be part of the Text family.
I need a whole separate paragraph to tell you how great my editor is. Mandy Brett, thank you for your skill, dedication, intellect and vision. You saw the narrative thread in the muddy morass of first-draft brain dump, and you pulled tight. (You even got rid of all my horrible mixed metaphors.) You made this a better book, and I am deeply grateful. Every author needs a Mandy. Only a few of us are lucky enough to have her. Also you need to know that Mandy is really funny. Laughing with your editor is a good thing.
My agent, Jacinta Dimase, leapt on my cockamamie idea for a trilogy based on the material heritage of Australian democracy, and sold it to Text before I had time to blink. Thank you, Jacinta, for being my defender, champion and chief hand-holder.
Big books require patient readers, particularly when in ugly duckling draft form. Anna Clark and John Goldlust read the whole manuscript in its earliest stages and offered vital structural advice and equally significant encouragement. Frank Bongiorno, Kim Rubenstein and Judith Brett picked up factual inaccuracies in the final stages. Ruth Leonards was, as always, my first and most enthusiastic reader. Thank you all. Any remaining faults are on me.
My La Trobe University History family rivals my Text family for comfort and joy. Thank you especially to Katie Holmes, Liz Conor, Tim Jones, Anne Rees, Holly Wilson, Liam Flood and the whole Tuesday morning tea mob for your support, interest and friendship. We miss you Tracey Banivanua-Mar. You scared me into believing this book was possible and maybe even necessary.
Several accomplished people gave their valuable time to do my shitty legwork. Thank you Kate Laing, Lillian Pearce and Nikita Vanderbyl in Australia, Violeta Gilbert in New Zealand and Lisa Plotkin in England for your research assistance. Your tedium was my treasure.
Collegiality can never be taken for granted. Thank you, Robert Wainwright, Eileen Luscombe and James Keating, for sharing the fruits of your suffrage journeys with me. Thanks also to Libby Stewart at the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House and Frances Bedford and her team at the Muriel Matters Society Archives. Frances, you are some kind of wonderful. Joe Connor, Lucy McLaren and Alex West at Renegade Films fuelled the first round of my suffrage fire when we made Utopia Girls in 2011. Thanks for allowing me to borrow from our research notes and script.
Many thanks to Simon Hearder and the estate of Dora Meeson Coates for granting permission to reproduce his ancestor’s glorious banner.
Hannah Kent offered me big-hearted and wise words when I needed them most. Just try to make it about the story that needs to be told, and find the wonder in it, she emailed on a day of extreme doubt. Thank you, Hannah. I reckon I found it.
Finally, to my actual family. Thanks to all of you, but particularly to Bernard and Noah Wright for the burly hugs and for never letting me take myself too seriously. What’s for dinner? is a very grounding question. Thank you, Esther Wright, for telling me to keep at it even when we both knew you’d prefer that I was there to tuck you in. And for all the late-night emoji kissy faces. You guys are the best.
My love and gratitude to Damien Wright. Big books mean long, solitary hours and Damien became accustomed to excusing my absence at parties. She’s in 1911, he’d explain to the hosts, she’ll be back. Thank you, darling. I’m back.