Acknowledgments

Bowing with grateful thanks to:

The NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) folks for hosting that great annual event. I used it to best advantage and wrote the first draft of this book in 2005 becoming one of more than nine thousand proud winners that year. To be a winner, one had to write a novel of at least 50,000 words in November, download it onto the NaNoWriMo site which counted the words, erased the file, and awarded the prize—a downloaded certificate which hangs on my wall.

Paul Michael Speir for agreeing to publish the book and for personally helping with the final stages of the text and layout and art and cover and the offshoots such as the color illustrations book, the audiobook, website, and so forth and for tirelessly keeping up with it and me for months, far beyond what any other POD (Print on Demand) publisher I know of would have done or permitted.

Those kind and skillful people who read the manuscript at various stages and who made valuable suggestions. First was my dear partner and mate Katrinka McKay who vetted it throughout the process and who always cheerfully answered my never-ending queries.

Heather Bussing for spending a good deal of time on the manuscript early on, a most helpful contribution to its development.

Kelly Chadwick, elder son, who, though extremely busy, carefully read through the book in its final stage, scrupulously observing details, and who made insightful, competent suggestions.

Others who read all or part and sagely advised: Andrew Atkeison, Berndt Bender, Cheryl Foltos, Ryan Madden, Avi Peterson, John Tarrant. Andrew Atkeison for his creative ideas and for creating a set of superior color illustrations for the story that are available from Cuke Press as Color Dreams for To Find the Girl from Perth. Ahdel Chadwick, my keen-eyed mother, for finding numerous errors in the first printing (see the Changes/Errata section of girlfromperth.com). Lisa Clark,  Jonathon Green, Alex Murawski, and Raymond Rimmer for further advice and assistance with illustrations. Carol Homiak and Rick Levine for medical counsel related to the story. Dotty Woodson and Kelly Chadwick for botanical council. David Cohen for tech support, also the competent staff at the Computer Recycling Center in Santa Rosa, CA. Richard Baker, Sarah Bercholz, Clay Chadwick, Elin Chadwick, Susan Chadwick, Lyn Dillin, Colleen Gildea, Daya Goldschlag, Theresa Green, Gregory Johnson, Arnie Kotler, Michael  Katz, Howie Klein, Bill Porter, Jim Richardson, Renée Roehl, Ward Ruscoe, Dennis Samson, Alan Senauke, Peter Spowart, David Stanford, Ellen Steube, Bridget Sumser, John Sumser, Ian Sweetman, Steve Tipton, Carole Tonkinson, Elizabeth Tuomi, Dan Welch—for miscellaneous support and advice along the way intentional and non. The wonderful people of WA with my apologies for any misrepresentations of them or the venues herein—memory moves, imagination grows, artistic license, and so forth. A few Ozzies in particular for teaching me all that Oz slang, much of which they’d argue with each other over what is still used and which is more associated with the Outback or Tasmania or wherever and whenever. Indispensable WA mega-pal Francine who gave me tons of inspiration, material, and tidbits to sprinkle throughout— also a name. WA-ite, Ross Bolleter for various suggestions and especially for his wonderful tango and ruined piano music which the reader is advised to acquire and listen to as part of this whole trip. Kurt Vonnegut  for saying, “American male writers have done their best work by the time they’re fifty-five and then it’s pretty junky after that.” Again, heartfelt gratitude to all of you and to any whom I forgot to mention. Let me know and you’ll be included soon. Which reminds me—all errors are my sole responsibility. I would be most grateful if you would inform me of any errors you encounter. You, dear reader, can contact me at davo@girlfromperth.com.