Love this long idea, Claire. I can feel myself defaulting to white male lyricists with A Longing Look and I chastise myself for it. Balance much needed.

Would you mind if I offered some voices / narratives I’ve found illuminating and inspiring recently? The women Doris Lessing writes in The Golden Notebook are fascinating. Eimar McBride’s A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing I’ve only seen in play form (rather than read) – but as a one-actor performance it underlined the female voice brilliantly. And the last is a non-fiction: Lavinia Greenlaw’s The Importance Of Music For Girls. Fantastic writing about music, adolescence and the social history of the 1970s. Brilliant.

Anyway, good luck! Look forward to tuning in…