Kristy Bushnell, thank you so much for your hard work on the proofread, and for flagging some final essential points, which I was grateful to be able to tend to in the last phase prior to publication.
Shannon Kelly, thank you for guiding my book through the final stages.
My immense thanks and appreciation must go to the wider HarperCollins Children’s Publishing, Marketing, Sales and Publicity teams – especially Cristina Cappelluto, Amy Fox, Michelle Weisz, Kady Holt and Georgia Williams. Thank you for your passion for children’s books, and the incredibly hard work you put in, every single day, to champion HCP authors and their stories.
Hazel Lam and the HarperCollins Design team – thank you for designing such a fun, clever, eye-catching cover! I love the way you captured the spirit of the novel, and the way in which social media and tech interplays throughout Taylor and Isolde’s story.
I am so proud to be an Australian author, and to be part of such an incredible industry. My thanks and immense gratitude go out to the booksellers, book-buyers, librarians, teachers, reviewers, children’s literature advocates, and the #LoveOzYA community – my stories wouldn’t reach readers without your support.
An extra-special thank you to my favourite bookshop – Beachside Bookshop (Avalon, Sydney) – and the phenomenal Libby and Danica. Libby, thank you for putting Goddess into the hands of so many new readers. I am so appreciative and grateful for your support the last few years. I can’t wait to pay a visit to your beautiful shop again soon!
I want to mention four very special people from the book community – Annie from Read3rz Re-Vu, Eugenia from Genie in a Book, Bron from Bookish Bron, and Jeann from Happy Indulgence, who are not only super-lovely, but also run fantastic platforms within the YA book community. Thank you for your support for my writing over the years, and for your tremendous enthusiasm and hard work in reviewing and promoting YA books.
I also want to acknowledge, in general, the vital role that book bloggers, BookTubers and bookstagrammers play in this industry – thank you for your immense love for LoveOzYA, and the time and effort you put in, every single day, to champion the books you believe in.
To my readers, thank you for all the love – the emails, the DMs, the tweets, the shout-outs, the beautiful photos, the kind and clever words – you are the reason I write! You lift me up on the days where self-doubt, or writer’s block comes to call. You make me smile, laugh and shed happy tears on the regular. There are a few names that I must mention – Paula, Kendall, Callie, Kendra, Mollie – you are AMAZING!!!
My one-in-a-million husband, Greg – you are my best friend, my confidant, my cheerleader, my rock. They say the real power of a man is in the smile of the woman sitting next to him. I have never smiled (or laughed) so much in my life since meeting you. You have lightened me, helped me heal from old hurts and freed me from so many fears. I can’t tell you how much you have changed my life for the better (I’m getting teary just typing this). I can tell you anything, and I know you have my back through everything. You are my Taylor. I love you.
My Dad, Peter. So much of what I know about creativity and the process of making art, I learned from observing you at work. Thank you for being both a Mum and Dad to me the last thirty-five years. Thank you for taking my million-and-one phone calls, for your patience, encouragement, and advice. Thank you for always being my biggest champion when it comes to believing in my purpose. For always reminding me that I am an artist. I am so grateful to have you as my father.
Tony Gray. Epic guitarist. Stellar playlist creator. Witty, funny, one of a kind. Thank you for not only being an amazing friend to me the last six years, but a best friend to Greg, for the past twenty-three. We can’t imagine our lives without you. Thank you for your crucial input into Taylor’s story, and for helping me over the last three years, to learn and understand as much as possible. Thank you for your openness, and for sharing so much of your experience. For answering a million questions, on topics ranging from phantom pain, to prosthetic pin-lock suspension systems, to specifics around accelerator conversion. For steering me in the right direction in terms of further reading and research. I couldn’t have written this book without you.
The Long Distance Playlist is, for me, a celebration of friendship. I want to acknowledge the friends who were there for me in my high-school and university years, who helped me cope with a wide range of difficult and painful situations. Ruben Gray, Beau Hansen and Cybele McNeil, thank you for the conversations, phone calls, and mini-counselling sessions (Cybele, we’re still going with these, twenty-three years later . . . I love it)! For the best friends I’ve made post-studies – Bo Hyea-Ok and Audrey Nicholas – thank you for all the heart-to-hearts, the laughter, and the memories. Here’s to many more!
Sarada – I am the luckiest person in the world, landing you as my sister. I always struggle to explain the sister bond to others – but as you know, it’s like having an in-built best friend, who will always understand you on the deepest level. I am so blessed that you are in my life – you are one of the greatest gifts I have been given in this lifetime. Twinnys forever.
The words ‘family’ and ‘friend’ are of course, intrinsically intertwined. Thanks and love go out to my brother, Jesse, my brother-in-law Angus, my adorable nephews Hartley and Emmerson, my in-laws Sharon and Cecil Sorour, and my sister- and brother-in-law, Helen and Josh Bowes (plus baby Bowes, of course!).
The following thank you is a little left-field, but it’s one I must include. Twenty years ago, there was a boy who lived 13,875 kilometres away, who sent me letters and emails across a four-year period. A boy who made my late-teenage years a little bit brighter and better. He was the first boy to call me beautiful, to make me jewellery, to read my short stories and songs, and to MSN Messenger chat (2000 much?) with me for hours about my hopes, dreams and fears. B – our story didn’t end like Taylor and Issy’s, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t important. I’m not sure if you will ever read this but thank you for writing to the girl from Australia. The genesis for The Long Distance Playlist, and the crux of the story’s heart – two people, kilometres apart, but closer than anything – began with our letters. I will always be grateful for them.
About the Author
TARA EGLINGTON grew up in Byron Bay, New South Wales, wrote The Long Distance Playlist by the shores of Lake Wakatipu, Queenstown, and now lives in Sydney. She is the author of four YA novels: How to Keep a Boy from Kissing You, How to Convince a Boy to Kiss You (titled Kissing Games in the USA), My Best Friend is a Goddess and The Long Distance Playlist, the third of which was a top-ten bestselling Australian YA title in 2016 and a notable for the 2017 CBCA Older Readers Book of the Year.
Tara’s hobbies, when she’s not writing, include watching endless cat videos on YouTube, planning pretend holidays to the Maldives, and daydreaming about who would play Hayden Paris in the film adaption of How to Keep a Boy from Kissing You.
Tara loves to hear from readers, so please say hello via [email protected], or @taraeglington on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Also by Tara Eglington
How to Keep a Boy from Kissing You
How to Convince a Boy to Kiss You
My Best Friend is a Goddess
Copyright
Angus&Robertson
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, Australia
First published in Australia in 2020
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Tara Eglington 2020
The right of Tara Eglington to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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arperCollinsPublishers
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ISBN 978 1 4607 5521 1 (paperback)
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Cover design and illustration by Hazel Lam, HarperCollins Design Studio
The Long Distance Playlist Page 29