Acknowledgments

For their kindness and willingness with research assistance, my sincere thanks to: Professor Fiona Wood (The McComb Foundation) and Joy Fong (State Burns Unit, Royal Perth Hospital); Margaret Harris (the ‘Butterfly Lady’) and Dr David Daniels (butterfly photographer); former ‘herring girl’ Rita McNab (McNab’s Kippers, Lerwick); Paul Ratter (Shetland Catch, Lerwick); Angus Johnson, Blair Bruce, Brian Smith (Shetland Archives, Lerwick); the helpful staff at Aberdeen Central Library and volunteers at the Buckie and District Fishing Heritage Centre; John Casley (Retired Firefighters Association, WA); Denis Brown (Fire and Emergency Services); Dr Terry Houston (WA Museum); Matt Williams (Department of Environment and Conservation); Richard Rossiter (for terrible lessons in fishing and ethics); Berice Todd (for discussions about life in Depression Perth); Val Kamman (for showing me the compilation of her father’s letters, Love to All at Home: Letters from World War I, W. M. Telford, Sapper, 1st Australian Tunnelling Company); David Buchanan (consultant reid-heid). All responsibility for any inaccuracies, or licence taken, is mine.

I also want to acknowledge the debt I owe to the following influential texts: Steven Rose, Lifelines: life beyond the gene (Vintage, 2005); Lee Alan Dugatkin, The altruism equation (Princeton University Press, 2006); David Fraser, ed., The Christian Watt papers (Caledonian, 1988).

I have had the privilege and pleasure of writing parts of Elemental during residencies at Kelly’s Cottage, Hobart; Hawthornden International Retreat for Writers, Lasswade, Scotland; and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Annaghmakerrig, Ireland. I thank the Tasmanian Writers Centre, Mrs Drue Heinz and the Australia Council for the Arts, repectively, for making these possible. And I thank my fellow residents at Hawthornden Castle and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre for their friendship and inspiration. It was at Tyrone Guthrie that I saw one of sculptor Anne McGill’s musical goddesses.

How lucky I am to have had generous, perceptive readers at various stages of writing. Thank you to friends Richard Rossiter, Wendy Bulgin, Susan Midalia, Robyn Mundy and Annabel Smith.

I am honoured that Gail Jones agreed to read Elemental, and thank her for her words on the back cover, which mean a great deal to me.

My gratitude to Terri-ann White for her careful reading and her continuing faith in my work, and to the enthusiastic, hard-working team at UWA Publishing—in particular, Linda Martin for her wholehearted engagement with the work and insightful editing, and Anna Maley-Fadgyas for another beautiful cover. Freelancers Deb Fitzpatrick (proofreader) and Keith Feltham (typesetter) are the best of the best.

Thanks to my patient family, who have been waiting for ‘the fish book’ for a long time. And to Ric, as always, for everything.