Public Library and Other Stories

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements and grateful thanks to the following publications, where stories from this collection first appeared:

Ox-Tales Fire; New Statesman; Goodbye to All That; Elsewhere; The Times; Harper’s Bazaar. ‘The beholder’ was originally commissioned by Durham Literature Festival and published, along with ‘The poet’, in Shire (2012). ‘The definite article’ was first published in the Park Stories series and is dedicated to Mary Chadwick.

Thank you to everyone

who helped in some way with this book, by telling me or sending me their library stories.

Special thanks to Kate Atkinson, Lori Beck, Xandra Bingley, Tracy Bohan, Lesley Bryce, Mary Chadwick, Helen Clyne, Lucy Gulland, Alexandra Harris, Debbie Hodder, Pat Hunter, Anna James, Clare Jennings, Jackie Kay, Eve Lacey, Olivia Laing, Sophie Mayer, Cathy Moore, Helen Oyeyemi, Richard Popple, Simon Prosser, Anna Ridley, Kamila Shamsie, Miriam Toews, Miriam Toews’s mother, Emily Wainwright, Natalie Williams, Emma Wilson, Sarah Wood.