In 2005, the Toowoomba Literary Society asked me to give an address to their November meeting. Here it is. I called it “Giving Voice to the Darling Downs letters of Anna Kate Fowler Hume 1866-1871.” Drayton, 18th February 1870 My dearest Alice,Very many thanks for your nice long letter of November 19, which I received
Continue reading ...Possibly because I have neglected doing it for so long, and because I now have some time, today’s job was to tidy up the disgusting piles of old paper which are much-beloved of silverfish, I see. Among them were gnawed copies (what else has been living in these piles of paper, I wonder) of talks
Continue reading ...Some months ago, I watched David Berthold interview the great director Peter Sellars. Among other things, Sellars noted the possible upsides of the pandemic. “There’s an upside?” I wondered. But Sellars said something which I’ve kept front and centre in my thinking for the past almost 6 months: “The virus is our teacher.” Those five
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