The ground for the "Why so few?" question has been comprehensively covered by Messrs. Schwartz and Todd, but I tend to agree with Mr Todd that somehow the arguments fail to hit the spot. In particular, I found Steve's suggestion that literature is somehow a technically less demanding discipline than music caused me at least one raised eyebrow. In what important sense can this possibly be true? It may indeed be cheaper to tinker with words, and the fact that most people can read certainly encourages many more - too many more - to try their hand at literature, but good writers do not spring fully armed from their own thighs any more than composers. The musical master-pupil relationships he outlines so nicely are equally vital for the nurture of writing talent. So is the kind of peer group stimulus that is the main benefit of the "Conservatoire" route. Mary-Anne Evans, the Brontes, Mrs Gaskell are no exception to any of this. English miniaturist Jane Austen may be accounted a special case, but she points to the real difference - that writers don't need a performing tradition to learn their craft, whilst composers do (or did before the synthesiser). The paucity of substantial female playwrights before the second half of the 20th century is a better parallel. It's certainly not that writing plays is technically any more demanding than writing novels, rather that the theatre and the concert hall were not considered suitable proving grounds for middle-class young ladies, whatever they chose to do in private. No surprise, therefore, that women's artistic endeavours tended to be channelled into the one field which offered at least some promise of public recognition - though even here, of course, "George Eliot" and "Acton Bell" were not masks donned for fun. Steve's example of Tilly Olsen's block, and the decidedly non- technical reasons for it, seems much nearer the mark. Artistic endeavour needs time and leisure which is, and remains still, a luxury for 95% of people on this planet - and most of them, alas, women. At which point I allow myself one, complacent little sigh. This surely points less to male stupidity than it does to male cunning. Christopher Webber, Blackheath, London, UK. http://www.nashwan.demon.co.uk/zarzuela.htm "ZARZUELA!"