Many of us will have heard or read that Di Gribble, of the now-defunct McPhee-Gribble publishing house died several weeks ago. I read and reviewed Hilary McPhee’s book Other People’s Words a few months back here and when I heard the news, I wondered what had happened after McPhee’s book had been published. How did Di Gribble react? I wondered. How did they feel about each other’s career in the wake of McPhee-Gribble’s demise?
Hilary McPhee answered many of my questions in a tribute that she wrote for The Drum recently. I urge you to read it here.
Melbourne in the late 60s and early 70s was a time when anything was possible for women of talent and ambition. The legislation had been changed; the glass ceiling smashed once and for all. McPhee-Gribble publishing house was a symbol of all that was happening, back then.
Vale Diana Gribble; goodbye to the past.
I remember those times in the late 70s when Mc Phee-Gribble was established in a house in Drummond Street and a Uni friend was one of ‘the bright young women with no experience’ they employed. A life well lived.