Thanks to Bill Buford and Deborah Treisman, Brigid Hughes, Ian Jack and Matt Weiland, David Marcus, Brendan Barrington, Colm Tóibín and Andrew O’Hagan, who published and commented on the original texts. Thanks also to Caroline Walsh, Tobias Hill, and A. L. Kennedy, who adjudicated the Davy Byrne Award, and to Duncan Minshull, Heather Larmour, Kevin Reynolds, and Kathryn Brennan, who commissioned and directed the work for radio. ‘Until the Girl Died’ was written for the voice of actress Eleanor Methven.
Thanks to Mary Chamberlain who braved my punctuation for the final copy-edit, and to Lucy Luck who worked to place these stories as they were written. Thanks, as ever, to Gill Coleridge and Melanie Jackson, and to my editors Robin Robertson and Amy Hundley.