The Illumination of Ursula Flight, page 34
It’s one thing to write a novel, and another to get it to the final, final, FINAL draft, and for that reason I send my fondest thanks to my endlessly enthusiastic agent Hellie Ogden as well as to Will Francis, Emma Parry and all at Janklow & Nesbit. In the same vein, I am immensely grateful to the talented and dedicated team at my publisher Allen & Unwin, particularly my editor Sam Brown, for believing in Ursula and me from the start, as well as Kirsty Doole and Clare Drysdale. To Sophie Hutton-Squire, copy editor extraordinaire; thanks for all the red pen. The visual elements of this novel were hugely important to me from its very first breath, and I owe Elzo Durt big thanks for bringing my ideas as well as my cover to life in illustrative form.
I would like to thank the staff at the British Library, where most of the historical research for Ursula took place, as well as my colleagues at Emerald Street, for allowing me to fudge a few deadlines in the name of book-writing. Enormous thanks go to my friends and family for their interest and encouragement, and for allowing me to ignore them for a year while I went to ground and wrote. Special mentions go to Nick Hills, who taught me the magic of an ideas book; to Mike and Tara Bennett for having me to stay while I wrote the middle bit; and to Mum and Dad, for your support, encouragement and love. Large swathes of the novel were written at my much-missed late mother-in-law, Marie Antoinette Tivnan’s house in Massachusetts, and I dedicate all the funny bits to her memory.
Finally, my biggest thanks of all go to my beloved husband Tom, who made me believe that I could. So I did.
Anna-Marie Crowhurst
London, October 2017
Anna-Marie Crowhurst, The Illumination of Ursula Flight
