ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Wheeler Centre/Readings Foundation, for granting me a 2014 Hot Desk Fellowship, without which I may never have had the confidence and structure to move forward with this book.

Kat Muscat, for bringing me into the fold of Voiceworks EdComm back in 2012 and making me an infinitely better writer as a result. You are dearly loved and missed.

All the precocious kids I met through EdComm, who’ve been some of my first ‘writer friends’, and always encouraging, brilliant, and hilarious.

Rafael Ward, Ellen Coates, and Chloe Brien for giving feedback on many first drafts of these stories, and for being such smart cookies, generally.

Victoria Marini, my agent, for your unflagging interest in my writing career from the other side of the globe.

The team at Scribe, for making this book real, and especially my editor, Marika Webb-Pullman, for taking such care with these words.

Mum and Dad, for being the kinds of parents who listen to Murder Ballads and read James Ellroy, and who are unquestionably proud to have a daughter who writes about ‘creepy’ things.

Kathy, Maggie, Nadia, and Wida, for being your wonderful, weird selves and some of my favourite people in the world.

Pepsi Max, for being such a delicious source of caffeine. Iris, for being fluffy.

Finally, I don’t know where I’d be without the love of a very good man, Kirill Kovalenko. You are all the birds, and more.