Sydney as a mature age student, completing an honours degree in history in 2006. Her thesis, titled "Realising an Absent Presence", sought to recognise the influence of women on Australian literature, an influence that had long been neglected in Australian literature studies, including in her own father's work, The Australian Language (1945). In 2011, Baker published Beethoven and the Zipper: The Astonishing Story of Musica Viva, which detailed how an Austrian immigrant to Australia, Richard Goldner, invented and patented a zip fastener for the Australian Army, and used the proceeds to establish Musica Viva Australia in 1945, which went on to become the world's largest entrepreneurial chamber music organisation. The book was optioned for a movie by Tree Productions (producer Brian Rosen). The screenplay (working title The Musician) is by Joan Sauers and the movie is slated for release in later 2020, the year of the 75th anniversary of Musica Viva. Personal and recent professional life Baker lives in Pyrmont, Sydney, Australia For the writing of Due Recognition (2018), Baker made her personal life an open book and a template for 150 years of key feminist moments in Australia's social history. Of her book one reader says: "It is a terrific documenting of the slow but inexorable shift in the possibilities for women over the decades and a very sober exposé of the underlying power lines and actions that ensure feminism is not an easy movement." Filmography 1965: On Being a Sheila 1967: A Bird's Eye View 1975: Sister, If You Only Knew 1975: A Say in Your Community with the Australian Assistance plan 1976: Leisure 1976: Seeing Red and Feeling Blue 1979: The Human Face of China (five-part documentary series) 1979: Saturday 1983: The Weekly's War 1984: After the Flood 1986: Land of Hope (10-part TV series) Awards 1977: Academy Award, Best Animated Short Film, for Leisure 1980: Henry Lawson Award for The Human Face of China 2019: Member of the Order of Australia, an AM, on Queen's birthday,2019 References 1939 births Living people Australian women journalists Australian television journalists Australian film producers Australian feminist writers 20th-century Australian historians People educated at Sydney Girls High School Tisch School of the Arts alumni University of Sydney alumni Australian women historians Members of the Order of Australia Producers who won the Best Animated Short Academy Award The Sydney Morning Herald people 21st-century Australian historians