Nowhere Boys (32 page)

Writing the novel for Nowhere Boys has been such a pleasure, made all the greater by working with the Hardie Grant editorial team. Thank you Hilary Rogers and Beth Hall for your incredible patience, your expert guidance, and your unwavering faith in me as an unminted novelist.

I would like to thank my parents, David and Yvonne McCredie; Anna Howard for all her support; my wonderful husband, David Pledger, for living with this world for so long and never tiring of it; and my own adventurous boys, Cassidy and Rafael. I would particularly like to thank Cass for his early editorial skills and his passion for this story.

I am indebted to all the writers who wrote episodes of series one: Roger Monk, Craig Irvin, Rhys Graham, Polly Staniford, and Shanti Gudgeon. Your ideas and clever dialogue have been integral to making the series spring to life as a novel.

To the Nowhere Boys themselves, Joel Lok, Dougie Baldwin, Matt Testro and Rahart Sadiqzai: you were fabulous to work with, fabulous to watch and having you all in my head as I wrote this novel was a joy.

To all the folk at Matchbox Pictures, particularly the exceptional producers Michael McMahon and Beth Frey, thank-you for their support of this project.

Most of all however I would like to thank Tony Ayres for creating Nowhere Boys. Thank you Tony, from the bottom of my heart, for taking me with you on the Nowhere Boys journey and for entrusting me to turn your brilliant, adventurous and unique series into a novel.

Elise’s love of storytelling comes from her father. He read her Charles Dickens from a very young age, using a different voice for every character. As an embarrassed 13-year-old, Elise hid in her bedroom, but unfazed he would continue reading from outside the door. Unsurprisingly, Elise went on to forge a career as an actor, and has appeared consistently in film, theatre and television. Elise is also an award-winning screenwriter and director; she walked the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival with her feature film Strange Fits of Passion. Elise is currently writing her second feature film. She has also written episodes for both seasons 1 and 2 of the Nowhere Boys TV series. Nowhere Boys is her first novel.