As a reader, I love reading the acknowledgements section of novels. It’s always felt a little like being able to slip into an after party while it’s in full swing and see the people in the wings of an author’s story step into light. It is an immeasurable thrill to be able to now write my own for my first novel.
My respect and gratitude to Yugambeh people on whose land many drafts of this novel were crafted; to Bundjalung people on whose saltwater country I grew up; to Butchulla people on whose land my grandmother lives, where the sugar cane fields grow that have long enchanted my mind. My respect and gratitude to Arrernte people, and Anangu on whose Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (NPY) Lands I worked and travelled through during the time I lived in the Northern Territory. I would especially like to acknowledge with gratitude the NPY women who shared culture and stories from their ancestors with me.
To my extraordinary team at HarperCollins Publishers Australia, thank you for completely exceeding my wildest childhood dreams. Alice ‘Whizzy’ Wood and Sarah Barrett, thank you for your tireless energy, hard work, and our out-of-hours chats and giggles. Hazel Lam, thank you for creating one of the most beautiful book covers I have ever seen for Alice Hart’s story. Mark Campbell, Tom Wilson, Karen-Maree Griffiths, Erin Dunk, Essie Orchard and Andrea Johnson, thank you for your passion and belief in this novel, and me. Nicola Robinson, thank you for your deft and intuitive edits, knowing where I could be and do better, and seeing me through. Catherine Milne, story sister, you have made me and Alice the best we can be. Thank you for imploring and teaching me to trust in the novel I had written, to trust in myself. I am indebted to you.
To Zeitgeist Agency: Benython Oldfield, Sharon Galant, and Thomasin Chinnery, my agents, thank you for believing in me, and Alice, and being the dream team of near-mythical wonders you are. There is no one else I would rather be in a war room with than you three.
Thank you Stéphanie Abou of Massie & McQuilkin Literary Agents for your hard word and tireless dedication.
To my incredible team of international publishers and translators for bringing Alice to readers around the world, deepest thanks to you for making dreams I didn’t even know I had come true.
My love, respect and heartfelt thanks to Ali Cobby Eckermann, desert-and-sea-bracelet-twin and tjanpi-T-shirt-giving ininti-sister. Thank you for appearing in my life when you did, and for your permission to include Seeds as Ruby’s own poem. Thank you for sharing your powerful words and big heart with me, malpa.
Alice Hoffman, thank you for replying to my first letter in 2009, and for your generosity of spirit sharing letters with me ever since. Thank you for your unwavering encouragement, magic, and the permission to quote from one of your letters in this novel. Thank you for writing the books that I have carried with me around the world, they have shown me the way to be brave and to believe.
To Anne Carson, thank you for honouring me with permission to quote your translation of Sappho’s poetry. Thank you Gracie Dietshe and Nicole Aragi of Aragi agency for your wonderful assistance in facilitating my request.
To Julianne Schultz, John Tague, Jane Hunterland and the team at Griffith Review in 2015, thank you for all you do and have done for Australian readers and writers. Thank you for being home to my first paid publication, and for giving the first chapter of this novel your annual writer award. Your investment in me changed the course of my life.
Thank you to Varuna the Writers’ House, for the perfect amount of eeriness, beauty, and solitude I didn’t know I needed so much to begin editing this book. To the women I wrote through the dark with on my residency: Biff Ward, Jackie Yowell, Helen Loughlin, and Bec Butterworth, you are always in my heart, around a banquet table of Sheila’s cooking. With wine.
To David Jayet-Laraffe of Frog Flowers, Giulia Zonza of On Love & Photography, and Nancy Spencer of Nancy Spencer Makeup, thank you for your alchemy, conjuring a tropical garden fairytale within a Manchester winter snow globe and placing me in the centre. Thank you for creating a once-in-a-lifetime author photo, and a joyous love-filled experience I will never forget.
To Edith Rewa, flower queen and enchanting botanical artist, thank you for flower illustrations that cast such powerful spells they don’t let go.
To the booksellers who supported Alice Hart, and me, in the lead up to publication: thank you for all the book magic you bring into the world, and for sharing some of that with me and this novel. To the booksellers who will read this novel, give it a place on a bookstore shelf, and share it with readers, thank you for being a light in every city and town, and making my childhood dream as a booklover and aspiring writer come true.
Thank you to Kate Forsyth and Carol Crennan for offering me a sponsored place on the History Mystery and Magic writing retreat in Oxford, 2015, an experience that had a profound effect on my writing and me as a writer. To my fellow retreat writers Sarah Guise, Kellie Watson, and Bec Smedley, thank you for sharing your hearts and stories with me. Thank you, Kate, for your friendship and for reminding me Alice was an ember that fear and anxiety could not extinguish.
To those who lit the way for me while I was in the dark woods writing this novel, thank you for your steadfast friendship, love, empowerment and encouragement: Favel Parrett, Courtney Collins, Nicole Hayes, Alys Conran, Meredith Whitfield, Anni Sartorio, Nick Benson and the Benson family, Simone Gingras-Fox and the Gerlinger family, Dimi Venkov, Ashley Hay, Khela Hutchinson, Gregoreen and PD, Eva de Vries, Olga Van Der Kooi (and Rogier and Louise), Helen Weston and JP, Sarah Rakich, Vanessa Radnidge, Lilia Krasteva, Jesse Blackadder, Andi Davey, Philippa Moore, Jenn Ashworth, Jane Bradley, Chris and Debbie Macintosh (and Beth and Lil), Cerys Jones, Helen Fulcher, Fraser How, Derek Henderson, Vicki Henderson, Stephen Ashworth, Lorena Fernandez Sanchez, Alex D’Netto, Linda Teo, Ian Henderson, Jenn Ashworth, Rachael Clegg (and Roberto, Joe, Francis, and Ruben), Susan Fernley and Brian Fox, Kate Gray, Cheryl Hollatz-Wisely, Jackie Bailey (Yen Yang and Ellie Belly), Jeremy Lachlan, Josie and James McSkimming, Sani Van der Spek, Dervla McTiernan, and Andy Stevenson (and Lou, Sam and Gina).
Particular heartfelt thanks to Kate Forsyth, Brooke Davis, Favel Parrett, Ashley Hay, Jenn Ashworth, Myf Jones, and Ali Cobby Eckermann for reading early proofs and endorsing this novel with such warmth, love, and generosity of spirit.
Thank you to Dr John Goldsmith for taking the time to meet with me, answer my relentless questions and share stories of stars and craters.
To the women I met at Singing Over the Bones training with Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estés in 2015, thank you for sharing your love and stories with me. Thank you for howling me along the way ever since.
To the men and women I studied and practised alongside at Mindfulness Self Compassion training with Christopher Germer and Kristin Neff in 2017. The timeliness of your work, empathy, support, and friendship carried me over the line, for which I am deeply grateful.
I had a public school education and some of my teachers throughout primary and high school remain standing examples of the power encouragement can have on shaping a life. Mrs Smart, Ms Pearce, Mr Chandler, Mrs Reynolds, and Mr Ham, thank you for seeing something in me I couldn’t see in myself and for teaching me how to believe in what might be possible with hard work and courage.
To the International Society, an independent charity that has been promoting diversity and providing a haven for international students, refugees, asylum seekers and locals in Greater Manchester for the last fifty years, thank you for being a place of warmth and welcome, safety and imagination, for so many thousands of us. Thank you to my International 16s around the world, I wouldn’t be the storyteller I am without you and the stories you shared with me.
Samantha Smith, incredibly talented tattooist, artist and storyteller, thank you for bringing Alice to life in and on my skin. I’m so grateful to have found you and to know you.
Melissa Acton, you are a woman who can turn a sensory deprivation chamber into a wonderland. Thank you for being one of my first readers and giving Alice a home in your book-loving heart.
Tanmay Barhale, Batman might have the notoriety, but you’re my favourite superhero. Thank you for telling me stories, some of which I hope to have honoured in this novel.
Viridiana Alonso-Lara, fire warrior, thank you for sharing your heart with me through your Mexican stories, right from the first night we met. Thank you for sharing your family and guacamole with me. Thank you for your love. Lulu wouldn’t be who she is without you.
Thank you Ammna Winchester for your friendship, and for doing me the honour of sharing your experiences with me. I couldn’t have written Alice’s time in hospital the way I have without your generous support and inspiration.
Boryana Pashova, beloved Banana, thank you for help with Bulgarian translations, for believing in me as a writer, and for showing me how to yell at a dish in the oven to make it bake faster.
Iva Boneva, Money Honey, woman extraordinaire, thank you for sharing Bulgarian fairytales with me. Thank you for all the belly-aching laughter we have had between Manchester and Sofia as we live fairytales of our own together.
Matt Warren and Nick Walsh, thank you for reminding me that laughter and love are medicine, and for teaching me never to be afraid or ashamed of being a honker.
Brooke Davis, there is not an In Gratitude section long enough for me to name everything I love and am grateful for about you. Nor are there enough daisies. Thank you for seeing me, for loving me, for letting me love you in my Doug apron whether you’re up or down your tree. Thank you for absolutely everything you have done to enable and empower Alice Hart, and me. I am bettered by the mere thought of you.
Myf Jones, incomparable friend, captain of our floating worlds, teacher of wind-leaning and sister through it all, there is no one I would rather eat my congratulations with than you. Thank you for being the very first to wholly bring Alice to life.
Sophs Stephenson, thank you for making my first year of writing in Manchester magnificent, and proving Elizabeth Bennet is alive and well. Jonny, thank you for putting Mr Darcy to shame. And HazelPop, Violet Crawley doesn’t hold a candle to you, my dear girl.
Sarah de Vries, my love-at-first-sight sister soul, there are not enough 1 pm starts to a day, naked trees, road trips, dogs in flower crowns, trinkets, house pants, king prawns, nutritional yeast, fabreezay, dark horses, fairytale collections or choreographed GoT arm dances in existence to measure the love and joy you bring to my life. Thank you for picking me up and dusting me off through all weather. Here’s to our future of purple rinses and butterfly hoarding.
Libby Morgan, when I was a kid and wished for a Golden Book best friend, I never thought she actually existed outside of the pages in my books. Thank you for surpassing my wishes and for fifteen years of true and extraordinary love. Thank you for talking every knot in this novel through with me and being a tireless and always loving voice of reason. Thank you for every hour of the countless hours we’ve spent talking over land and sea. Andy, Jess, Nath, Raff, Mick, Jordy, Lani, Rainy, and Razor: thank you for loving me like your own.
To my extended Harris family, Merilyn, Matt, Gabe, Leo, Arley, Buggy, Chris, Vicky, Sue, and Annie, thank you for believing in me and cheering me on, with love.
Lee Steindl, thank you for screaming with me every step of this way. Thank you for teaching me the power of a broom, how to stare down crows, and making me belly laugh all my life. And for Moët. Always, for Moët.
Matty Hutchinson, Lulu and I will love you forever. Thank you for championing Alice into being, for naming your sunflower girl after her, and for bringing me her cupcake.
Joan Mary Corfield, thank you for growing an incomparable fairy garden that we all roamed wild in, and for the deep love of stories and writing in my blood.
Dadgee, Toby, Goose, Teapot, and Coco, there is nothing that compares to coming home to you. Thank you for giving me love and the safest place I could ever hope for to write my way through the dark into bloom.
To Hendrix, the littlest Thor, and Kira Navi, Queen of the Wild Frontier, thank you for reminding me how powerful and essential imagination and stories are.
To my mother, Colleen Ringland. You taught me how to be brave. You taught me how to read by the time I was three. Thank you for my life, Mamaleen. Thank you for showing me what it means to never give up.
To the rest of my family and friends, thank you for your love and support.
Saving the best to nearly last, Sam Harris, you are the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Thank you for teaching me that peace is a fire. Your love is the truest magic I know.
My final thanks are to you, dear reader. A writer’s words are brought to life by being read: Alice Hart would not fully live without you. My gratitude is yours.