Theatre Notes inspired me to start SM and I know there are many other bloggers who will say the same.
Alison's writing told me to not be afraid to write deeply about theatre, to use my own voice, to never speak down to readers and to not feel guilty when I don't have time to write something (or read something; Black Spring is on my pile).
Just this weekend, she was talking at a conference and discussed critics as advocates for the arts.
And perhaps that's the Theatre Notes legacy. Criticism isn't about antagonism between writer and artist. Theatre writers write about theatre because we love it. We don't like all that we see and we certainly don't agree all the time, but we write about it all. We read and write to discuss thearte and art, to celebrate the amazing stuff created and to see a work from a different perspective. It's not about "us" and "them"; it's all "us".
How Alison has sustained such an incredible output of incredible words continues to amaze me. I really have no idea how she kept writing great criticism and finished a novel this year.
If you don't know just how much she writes, here's her bio and alisoncroggon.com will take you to her novels, poetry and everything else.
Theatre Notes is going to be very missed, but I look forward to reading all that Alison creates now she's freed up some time.
And who is Cameron going to fight with now?
