A big band was playing a lively tune at one of the last concerts of the Grampians Jazz Festival. We carried chairs to a shady spot away from the hot sun and settled in to listen. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of someone dancing with such abandon I had...
Long before I had a chance to become acquainted with animals other than cats and dogs, I fell in love with Isaac Bashevis Singer’s story of “Zlateh the Goat”...
If the Kenyan orphanage had been surrounded by a sturdy fence, Omari would not have been slashed in the face by a machete-wielding thug. He was protecting the 35...
I saw my first echidna on the outskirts of Hall’s Gap, a village at the foot of the Grampians in Australia. Jeannette, Robin’s sister-in-law, spotted the quilled creature. I...
Their hair is grey, but their music retains all the colours of the jazz palette. Each February they descend on Hall’s Gap for the annual Grampians Jazz Festival. The...
Models for courage are not always human. This one is a rabbit, a rabbit who herds sheep. Seriously. I’ve owned a trained Border Collie. I recognize the moves, the...
The saga continues, and I figure I’m pretty lucky. By the time United gives up on our flights and sends about 375 of us off to hotels, we are...
I’m writing from the Hilton near the Los Angeles airport. I should be just about touching down in Sydney now, wrestling my suitcase through customs, hopping a bus to...
People who choose a career in the arts are used to hearing advice about finding a job that pays real money and doing art on the side. But if...
The earthquake that shook Japan in March 2011, and the terrible tsunami that followed, destroyed or damaged over 270,000 buildings and left several hundred thousand homeless. Damage to the...
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