It’s a predominantly all-boys school that has opened its doors to girls in Year Eleven for the first time ever.

No motivational messages stuck on my mirror urging me to do something that scares me every day.Īnd for the first time all year, I go to school and my only agenda is to get to 3:15. No twelve-point plan on the best way to make a name for myself in a hostile environment. There is no advice on how to make friends with the bold and the interesting. It’s mostly seventies and eighties retro crap, anything from “I Will Survive” to some woman called Kate Bush singing, “Don’t give up.” When I question her choices, she says they’re random, but I know that they are subliminal techniques designed to motivate me into being just like her.īut this morning there is no song. It meant I didn’t have to go through one of her daily pep talks, which usually begin with a song that she puts on at 6:45 every morning. THIS MORNING, MY mother didn’t get out of bed.

Thanks also to Beth Yahp, Teresa Crea, and Agnes Nieuwenhuizen for giving me the opportunity to create fragments of Francesca over the past ten years in your anthologies and performance piece. Thanks for your advice about the manuscript or for writing ten pages of notes for me or feeding my ego or inspiring me with your own writing or pointing out the difference between a pipeline and a grind pole. To my mum, Christine Alesich, Barbara Barclay, Marcus Burnett, Anthony Douglas, Philippa Gibson, Laura Harris, Damian Hatton, Janet Hill, Sophia Hill, Genevieve and Olivia Hill (for typing out your mum’s notes), Brenda Hokin, Annette Hughes, Brother Eric Hyde, David McGuigan, Michelle Patane, Mark Roppolo, Aaron Taranto (and Wade, although you weren’t supposed to read it), Francus Vierboom, Julie Watts, Kate Woods, Maxim Younger, and Toby Younger. Mum, Dad, Marisa, Daniela-thanks for the whole Grand Central Station experience.

Saving francesca by melina marchetta