ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My eternal thanks to my spectacularly supportive partner, my heart: Tom Doig. Thank you for playing the long game, in life and love.

Thank you to my family, Anne Whisken, Hayden Whisken, Gavin McKay, Rachel Greaves, Granny Judy, Jenny Gill, Harry Doig, Alice Doig, Luke Mcannalley-Shaw, Jack Doig, and Jeanne Marie Colé. As well as my aunts, uncles, and cuzzies from the Hodgson, McKay, Gill, and Doig clans.

And the children! Thank you for being your spectacular selves, my nieces and nephews. Your brilliant minds and humour give me the courage to keep writing. Thank you, Sae, Erryn, Asha, Finn, and Lana. Thank you, Kenai, Lyra, Kyrie, and Celeste.

Thank you, my dear friends and your extraordinary children and animals: Brea Acton, Peter Arena, Emilie Zoey Baker, Kelly Chandler, Tom Dunstan, Michelle Ferris, Sam Gifford, Robert Harding, Pete Haydon, Bella Li, Michael Nolan, Phil Smith, Amy Spiers, and Sean M Whelan.

I was so lucky to find a home for this book with the Scribe family. To be on the same page, every page, with Marika Webb-Pullman has been a wonderful dream. And I can’t give enough hugs to the rest of the Scribe Aus and UK teams, especially Henry Rosenbloom, Cora Roberts, Chris Grierson, Sarina Gale, Laura Thomas, Chris Black, Adam Howard, and Colin Midson.

Thank you to the early and late readers and advisors, especially Luke Anderson, Clare Archer-Lean, Philip Armstrong, Romy Ash, Collin Bjork, Kelly Chandler, Tom Doig, Henry Feltham, Victoria Feltham, Anna Krien, Lisa Lang, Evelyn Meisell, Max Milne, Anne Whisken, Hayden Whisken, Charlotte Wood, and Selena the dog.

This book wouldn’t have been possible without the support of the writerly geniuses in the University of Melbourne Creative Writing Department. Kevin Brophy and Amanda Johnson, my supervisors: thank you! Thanks also to Barbara Creed, Elizabeth MacFarlane, Radha O’Meara, and Eddie Patterson, and the Knowing Animals Reading Group, especially Hayley Singer, Lynn Mowson, and Susan Pyke. Thank you also to my wonderful colleagues at Massey University; your warmth and creativity means the world.

When I was in a rather deep hole of illness and despair, a number of people and organisations shone some bright lights down. Thank you to Women of Letters, The Boon Companions, Melbourne Writers Festival, The Emerging Writers Festival, Writers Victoria, and The Wheeler Centre, along with The Readings Foundation and Wheeler Centre Hotdesk Fellowship.

I am indebted to many authors and their words, especially Dog Boy by Eva Hornung, Bear by Marion Engle, The Conversations of Cow by Suniti Namjoshi, Diary of a Steak by Deborah Levy; the short stories ‘Water’ by Ellen van Neerven and ‘The Author of the Acacia Seeds’ by Ursula K. Le Guin; and Val Plumwood’s essays on ‘Being Prey’ and ‘Babe: the tale of the Speaking Meat’.

Thank you so much to the staff and Traditional Owners at The Northern Territory Wildlife Park as part of the Artist-in-Residence program, especially Natalie Hill, Shael Martin, and Jasmine Jan, as well as Matt Robbie; and thank you to The Centre for Great Apes, and the captive and wild nonhuman animals in these sanctuaries and beyond for their generosity and expertise. A Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship supported these creative research trips.

Extra special thanks to Bucket (magpie), Katie (wallaroo), The Mosquito, and Elsie (dingo).