by Les Zig
All I have then is a glib answer, but it is the answer.
I type three letters back to Luke:
Yep
Then I shove the phone in my pocket, and go back into the house.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
There’s a saying, ‘It takes a village to raise a child.’ The same can be said about a writer. A lot of people contribute to your development. Without them, your growth is stunted, or malformed, and you never truly realise your potential. I don’t know if I’ve realised my potential, but I never would’ve got this far without these people.
Thanks firstly, to everybody at Pantera Press: Ali Green, Marty Green, Susan Hando, Madeleine Konstantinidis, James Read, John and Jenny Green, Katy McEwen, and Elly Clapin (and anybody I’ve unwittingly left out), for believing in me, and my writing, enough to take a chance on me. From that team, a special thank you to my patient and diligent editor, Lucy Bell. I’ve always thought you’re not truly an editor until an author’s frustrated you to the extent that you’re cursing their name and visiting seedy bars in hopes of hiring a hitman. I’m unsure if I ever pushed Lucy that far as she’s always courteous and gracious with me, but she would’ve been entitled to lose it given my manic queries and revisions. So, thank you Lucy, for challenging me and taking Just Another Week in Suburbia the rest of the way. I learned lots, and I’m the better for it. Thanks also to my proofreader, Desanka Vukelich, for her polish on the final manuscript.
Thanks to my alpha readers for their feedback: Blaise van Hecke, as always, supportive and encouraging, and who patiently and uncomplainingly reads multiple drafts and always offers comprehensive feedback; Bel Woods, who’s always so insightful and sees a bigger picture; Ryan O’Neill for his support and comments; Lazaros Zigomanis for his structural understanding; Melissa Cleeman for her thoughts and Val Vogel for her advice and thoughts.
An earlier, much different draft of Just Another Week in Suburbia was selected for the 2013 Hachette Manuscript Development Program, during which I met some great people. A big thanks to then-publisher Bernadette Foley for getting me to see where the book had moved away from the story I was trying to tell; Vanessa Radnidge; author Charlotte Nash, who made me feel like it was a story worth telling, and which I was getting right; and the great group of authors I met there: Kim Lock, for her fabulous feedback; J. M. Peace who loved the story and helped with police procedural issues (if you’re wondering what police procedural issues, well, they’re no longer there because I learned how unlikely they were); Sarah Ridout for reading it so quickly and helping me round out the characters; and Mhairead MacLeord, Laura Elvery, and Kathy George. Also, thanks to the people who were then at the Queensland Writers’ Centre (such as Meg Vann and Sophie Overett) who coordinated the Program.
Thanks to my writing group: Beau Hillier, Jasmine Powell, Gina Boothroyd, Deb Graham, and Blaise van Hecke (again), for reading some of the early chapters as I was reworking the book.
Also, a big thank you to Peter Panayiotou, for acting as an intermediary with his talented vet daughter, Mel Panayiotou, and answering my endless veterinary questions (when I have questions, they’re always endless). If there’s any errors here, they’re no doubt mine. Thanks also to Barry Carozzi, who patiently answered all my questions about being a high school teacher, from routines, to classes, to responsibilities.
Finally, a thank you to my agent, Sally Bird, for taking me on, and believing in me and Just Another Week in Suburbia.
And thank you to you, the reader, for picking up this book.
If you enjoyed
then look out for the next novel
from Les Zig (2018).
for more information, visit:
www.PanteraPress.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Les Zig has been telling stories since he was a kid, lying to get out of trouble. As a teenager, he worked out he could put his imagination to use telling stories, although this took a number of different forms. As he’s grown older, he’s had stories and articles published in various print and digital journals, screenplays optioned, and written one whole poem.
He’s now interested in exploring the human psyche—from the fears, quirks, and neuroses that drive us, to the dynamics of how people interact and react, how the world around them influences and sometimes predetermines their choices, and who they inevitably become.