I’m stuck on essays, can’t get enough of them – American anthologies, Janet Malcolm and home-grown writers Robert Dessaix, Helen Garner and now Barbara Blackman with All My Januaries. It’s almost 20 years since Barbara Blackman brought out her autobiography Glass after Glass. Now she’s 87 and has been rummaging around in her archive boxes, fishing out some gems and writing new ones for her latest book of essays. Inspiring life and writing!

She mentions recording her dramatic monologue Eliza Surviva with singer Maggie Noonan and what fun they had. Synchronicity! I was about to review Maggie’s daughter Katie Noonan’s gig, were she was to sing poems by Judith Wright, a close friend of Barbara Blackman’s, set to music by Australian composers.

It was a wonderful evening at the Melbourne Recital Centre. You can read my review here:

http://www.australianstage.com.au/201604307767/reviews/melbourne/with-love-and-fury-|-katie-noonan-and-brodsky-quartet.html