02 Mar Donald Mayland
I completed a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Queensland. I was always very involved with music, and I still play the piano every morning. I’ve always been interested in theatre and acting. I was selected as one of the first students at NIDA more than fifty years ago, though I gave up the position and went on to book publishing.
Book publishing was my main career; I was a book editor for most of my life. I was trained by the biggest publisher in Australia in the early sixties. I would have read hundreds of books over the course of my career. Though I don’t read as much now, I still write correspondence using my portable typewriter. I tried to use a digital one once, but I just couldn’t do it!
I was also quite well known as a poet in the sixties and seventies. As a young man, introspection inspired me to write. I wrote two books of poetry and published my first poems together with David Malouf, a well-known writer.
My advice to my younger self would be to not drift from one job to the other, but to accept a job and stick to it. But I have no regrets, the past is behind me and now we look forward to today and the future. I am very lucky to be alive.
Every day I meditate before exercise class, it sets the day right for me. And I give thanks to the higher power, which is, as I understand it, God. This allows me to experience straight thinking for the day. Today is important and tomorrow is as well.
**Not his real name