Barbara Anderson - from The Arts Foundation

	Last weekend we received the sad news that Barbara Anderson had passed away.  Following our emailed tribute to Barbara, we received the following words from playwright Roger Hall, which we want to share with you: "I first came across Barbara Anderson's work when she submitted a play for Playmarket's big workshops back in the 1980s. As far as I can recall, Susan Wilson and I supported her submission, amidst some opposition, to be work shopped because of its fresh and quirky dialogue that leapt off the page. A couple of years later, she submitted another play, equally funny, called Gorillas, "a farce involving the double bookings of a convention centre by both Rotarians and psychiatrists.They combine for a fancy dress ball, infidelities and penetration by undercover agents." Who could resist such a plot? Every professional theatre in the country, alas, more fool they. But theatre's loss was fiction's gain, and she found both her voice and public acceptance, with  her wonderful ear for dialogue serving her well in all of her fine novels and short stories. Ironically, one of her most successful stories, "Up the River with Mrs Gallant" consists almost entirely of indirect speech--and yet one hears precisely what each character says. A lovely lady who will be very sadly missed."