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About the Author
Lulu Allison has spent most of her life as a visual artist. She attended Central Saint Martin’s School of Art before spending a number of years travelling and living abroad. Among the bartending and cleaning jobs, highlights of those years included: in New Zealand, playing drums for King Loser and bass for Dimmer; in Germany, making spectacle hinges in a small factory; in Amsterdam, painting a landmark mural on a four-storey squat and nearly designing the new Smurfs; in Fiji and California, teaching scuba diving.
After a decade of wandering, she returned to the UK, where she had two children and focused on art. She completed a fine art MA and exhibited her lens-based work and site-specific installations in group and solo shows.
In 2013, what began as an art project took her into writing, and she unexpectedly discovered what she should have been doing all along.
Twice the Speed of Dark is her first book. She is currently writing a second, called Wetlands.
This edition first published in 2017
Unbound
6th Floor Mutual House, 70 Conduit Street, London W1S 2GF
All rights reserved
© Lulu Allison, 2017
The right of Lulu Allison to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
ISBN (eBook): 978-1911586456
ISBN (Paperback): 978-1911586449
Design by Mecob
Cover images :
© Shutterstock.com / ArtYouAre (trees) © Shutterstock.com / Elenamiv (sky) © Shutterstock.com / pzAxe (newspaper) © Shutterstock.com / peresanz (stars) © Shutterstock.com / Katyau (writing) Textures.com (background)
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This book is dedicated to the strangers, the shades – the two women a week and the nameless dead.
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Dear Reader,
The book you are holding came about in a rather different way to most others. It was funded directly by readers through a new website: Unbound.
Unbound is the creation of three writers. We started the company because we believed there had to be a better deal for both writers and readers. On the Unbound website, authors share the ideas for the books they want to write directly with readers. If enough of you support the book by pledging for it in advance, we produce a beautifully bound special subscribers’ edition and distribute a regular edition and e-book wherever books are sold, in shops and online.
This new way of publishing is actually a very old idea (Samuel Johnson funded his dictionary this way). We’re just using the internet to build each writer a network of patrons. Here, at the back of this book, you’ll find the names of all the people who made it happen.
Publishing in this way means readers are no longer just passive consumers of the books they buy, and authors are free to write the books they really want. They get a much fairer return too – half the profits their books generate, rather than a tiny percentage of the cover price.
If you’re not yet a subscriber, we hope that you’ll want to join our publishing revolution and have your name listed in one of our books in the future. To get you started, here is a £5 discount on your first pledge. Just visit unbound.com, make your pledge and type TWICESPEED17 in the promo code box when you check out.
Thank you for your support,
Dan, Justin and John
Founders, Unbound
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Super Patrons
Amy Allison
Thea Allison
Jem, Sol & Maisie Allison
Sarah Allison
Joe & Sallie Allison
Philip Allison
Olive Allison
Robert Allison
Bruce Amos
William Amos
Stephanie Amos
Johanna Berger
Clive Boorman
Alex Bowen
Samantha Brown
Jane Carr
Paul Clarke
Barry Cottle
Thurstan Crockett
Mike Crump
Phoebe Deans Allison
Lilian Deans Allison
Nansi Diamond
Sophie Dissanayake
Catharine Faithfull
Alex Fenton
Alastair Galbraith
Zoe Glover
Tommy Graml
Liz Hale
Pierre Halé
Amanda Hallay
Suzanne Harrington
