Thank you to friends and family that read drafts, or simply listened to me rave about the story as it was developing. Dr Lee Francis IV, you especially come to mind.

Thank you Andrew Bovell and Eugenia Fragos for helping in the most practical ways during the writing of this book. You really helped me when I needed it most.

Margaret Davy, your special support made work and writing balance possible, and made space for the best of all things to happen.

Rachel Bin Salleh, thank you for the many long discussions during the writing of this novel, and for the encouragement and support.

I especially want to thank my wife Anita and my daughters who continue to support my writing, and not only that, are interested in it, and celebrate it. Without this most important support, my writing wouldn’t be possible.

Finally, thanks to you, the reader. In a word full of easily accessible and brilliant entertainment, I honour the time that you take to spend with my words. I hope that through your commitment to my story, I have left you better for it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr Jared Thomas is a Nukunu person of the Southern Flinders Ranges, William and Margaret Geary Research Fellow, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Material Culture and Art at the South Australian Museum and the University of South Australia, and an Indigenous Literacy Foundation ambassador. He is the highly regarded author of critically acclaimed books for young adults including Sweet Guy, which was short-listed for both the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards and the Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature, and Calypso Summer, for which Jared was awarded the Kuril Dhagun Indigenous Writing Fellowship, and which was selected by the International Youth Library as a White Raven Book and short-listed for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Indigenous Writing. Jared is also the author of the YA novel Songs that Sound Like Blood and the co-author of the Patty Mills series Game Day.