And I know I still love you.
Acknowledgements
Heartfelt thanks and infinite aroha to Michael Steven, Jack Ross, Bronwyn Lloyd and Catherine Chidgey, who gave their own precious writing time to be the first readers of this book. I can’t say how much it means to have the love and friendship of such gifted writers.
Deepest thanks too, to those who generously gave me retreat time during the writing of this book: to Steve Braunias and The Spinoff for a Surrey Hotel residency; to the University of Waikato for time in the Michael King House; to Phillida Perry for an editing summer in the Bay of Plenty; and again, to my dear friends Bronwyn and Jack, for a backyard haven where the words always come home.
Many of these stories have received awards and been previously published in journals and anthologies; grateful acknowledgment is given to the judges and editors who made the following possible:
‘25–13’ won the Fish Short Story Prize 2020 and was published in Fish Anthology 2020.
if there is no shelter was runner up in the Bath Novella-in-Flash 2020 Award and was published by Ad Hoc Fiction.
‘holding the torch’ was commended in the ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize 2019.
‘three rides with my sister’ was shortlisted for the Bath Flash Fiction Award 2019 and was published in with one eye on the cows: Bath Flash Fiction Volume Four.
‘postcards are a thing of the past’ won second place in The Moth Short Story Award 2018 and was published in The Moth and The Irish Times.
‘stations of the end’ was a finalist for the Mslexia Short Story Competition 2018 and was published in Mslexia.
‘compact’ was highly commended and ‘the best reasons’ and ‘Never Tell Your Lover That His Wife Could Be Having an Affair’ were longlisted in the Bath Flash Fiction Award 2018 and published in things left and found by the side of the road: Bath Flash Fiction Volume Three.
‘I still hoped the photos would come out well’ was shortlisted and ‘I feel there’s a young girl out there suffering’ was longlisted in the Bath Flash Fiction Award 2017 and published in The Lobsters Run Free: Bath Flash Fiction Volume Two.
‘some facts about her home town’ was highly commended in the Manchester Fiction Prize 2017.
‘dorm’ was longlisted in the National Flash Fiction Day competition 2017 and published in Flash Frontier 2017.
‘the receiver’ was shortlisted in the Fish Short Story Prize 2016 and published in The Radiance of the Short Story, edited by Maurice A. Lee and Aaron Penn (University of Lisbon, 2019).
‘god taught me to give up on people’ was longlisted in the Fish Flash Fiction Prize 2016.
‘Stage Three’ was shortlisted for the Manchester Fiction Prize 2015 and published in Influence and Confluence: East & West and translated into German for Lichtungen: Journal of Literature, Art and Criticism.
‘if found please return to’ was published in Landfall 240 and in The Spinoff.
‘warpaint’ was published by ReadingRoom in 2020.
‘What You Don’t Know’ was the featured fiction in Takahē 97.
‘fisheye’ was published in Bonsai: Best Small Stories from Aotearoa, edited by Michelle Elvy, Frankie McMillan and James Norcliffe (Canterbury University Press, 2018).
‘ladybirds’ was published in Landfall 233.
‘Cicada Motel’ was published in Sport 45.
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