Biographers in Conversation

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Troy Bramston chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Gough Whitlam: The Vista of the New. This is the first full biography of Gough Whitlam, a former Australian Prime Minister, since his death in 2014. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: The biography’s subtitle The Vista of the New came from a poem Gough Whitlam wrote in 1934 as a stude...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Ian Hembrow chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about his choices while crafting Celsius: A Life and Death by Degrees. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: Celsius: A Life and Death by Degrees is the first full-length English biography of Anders Celsius, a modest Swedish astronomer who quietly revolutionised our understanding of the natural...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Hester Kaplan chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Twice Born: Finding My Father In the Margins of Biography. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:  The catalyst for crafting Twice Born was the death of Hester’s father, the biographer Justin Kaplan. Hester realised she had lost the chance to ask her father the questions that had always e...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Helen Pitt chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about The House: The dramatic story of the Sydney Opera House and the people who made it and Luna Park: The extraordinary story of the showmen, shysters and schemers who built Sydney’s famous fun park. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: The catalyst for The House was hearing of the death of Sy...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Dr Paul Kildea chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Chopin’s Piano: A Journey through Romanticism. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: Paul Kildea’s inspiration for crafting Chopin’s Piano. A Journey through Romanticism. The significance of the biography’s title. The relevance of Chopin’s Piano: A Journey through Romanticism today. Cho...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Sara Fitzgerald chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about The Silenced Muse: Emily Hale, T. S. Eliot, and the Role of a Lifetime. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: How the secret letters T.S. Eliot wrote to Emily Hale revealed an intimate 27-year correspondence (1930-1957) that confirmed Hale’s profound influence on his poetry. How Eliot’...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Dr Theodore Ell chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Lebanon Days:  Memories of an ancient land through economic meltdown, a revolution of hope and surviving the 2020 Beirut explosion.  Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: Theodore Ell reveals how the blended style of Lebanon Days—weaving memoir, cultural history, travel writing, journa...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Dr Deborah FitzGerald chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Her Sunburnt Country: The Extraordinary Literary Life of Dorothea Mackellar. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:  Why Dorothea Mackellar crafted her iconic poem: ‘I Love a Sunburnt Country’. Deborah FitzGerald’s inspiration for crafting Her Sunburnt Country. Why Mackellar was i...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Lucy Jane Sussex and Megan Brown chat with Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Outrageous Fortunes: The Adventures of Mary Fortune, Crime-Writer, and Her Criminal Son George Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: Outrageous Fortunes was co-authored after a 25-year conversation, combining Lucy’s 35 years of research with Megan’s PhD research. Lucy and...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Dava Sobel chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: Dava Sobel used the periodic table as the structural framework, with each chapter keyed to an element that represents a period of Curie’s life or scientific work. Dava...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Jacqueline Kent chats with Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Inconvenient Women: Australian Radical Writers 1900-1970. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: Jacqueline Kent traces the ‘missing generation’ of Australian radical women writers, who bridged the gap between suffragists and second-wave feminism. These writers were politically active and...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Mark Hussey chats with Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Mrs Dalloway: Biography of a Novel. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: Mrs Dalloway: Biography of a Novel was published exactly 100 years after Virginia Woolf’s famous novel appeared. Why Mark Hussey portrayed Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs Dalloway as a living subject with its own life story....

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Nicholas Boggs chats with Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Baldwin: A Love Story. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: Why Nicholas Boggs structured the biography around Baldwin’s four great loves rather than chronology. Baldwin’s frank acknowledgment that his novels were driven by autobiographical impulses gave Boggs rare biographical licence to...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Francesca Wade chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife was sparked by Francesca’s access to previously unpublished Leon Katz interview transcripts with Alice B. Toklas, revealing how Gertrude Stein deliberately constructed her public persona and...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation Lance Richardson chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about True Nature: The Lives of Peter Matthiessen. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: Lance Richardson approached the biography with a central thesis question: how did Matthiessen develop his unique sensibility that allowed him to move fluidly between science and spirituality, treating th...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Frances Wilson chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Electric Spark: The Enigma of Muriel Spark. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: How Muriel Spark’s first 39 turbulent years provided the raw material for her fiction. Frances Wilson’s discovery of Spark’s games, puzzles and anagrams, including the invented ‘doppelganger’, Nita McEwen,...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation’s special summer season, Dr Stephen J. Campbell chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about his choices while crafting Leonardo da Vinci: An Untraceable Life. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: Why Stephen Campbell resists the urge to create a seamless narrative and instead embraces the mystery, silence and gaps in Leonardo da Vinci’s story....

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Susan Wyndham chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Elizabeth Harrower: The Woman in the Watch Tower.  Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: Why Susan Wyndham opened the biography with Elizabeth Harrower’s late-life renaissance. The meaning of the title: ‘The Woman in the Watchtower.’ Details of Susan’s exhaustive archival research.  How...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Professor Clare Wright OAM chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Näku Dhäruk The Bark Petitions: How the People of Yirrkala Changed the Course of Australian Democracy. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: Clare Wright’s deep 15-year cultural integration with the Yolŋu community in North-East Arnhem Land enabled her to write The Bark Peti...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation’s special summer season, multi-award-winning broadcaster, composer and author Andrew Ford AOM chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about his latest book, The Shortest History of Music. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: Andrew Ford explains how he balanced brevity and intellectual depth while crafting a 200-page book spanning 4,000 years of...

In this first episode of Biographers in Conversation’s special summer season, the distinguished British biographer Oliver Soden chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about his choices while crafting Jeoffry: The Poet’s Cat. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: How Virginia Woolf’s Flush: A Biography, the imaginative biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s cocker spaniel, influenced Oliver...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, pychotherapist, university lecturer and author Josie McSkimming, chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Gutsy Girls: Love, Poetry and Sisterhood. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: Why Gutsy Girls began as a 180,000-word biography of the poet Dorothy Porter, though later transformed into a hybrid of memoir, biography and family history....

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, biographer and veteran journalist, Helen Trinca, chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Looking for Elizabeth: The Life of Elizabeth Harrower. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: Helen Trinca’s quest was to discover why the author Elizabeth Harrower stopped writing at the height of her powers. How Elizabeth was rediscovered when Text Pub...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Dr Drusilla Modjeska chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about A Woman’s Eye, Her Art: Reframing the Narrative through Art and Life. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: Why Drusilla Modjeska wrote this biography of six female European modernist artists from the early 20th century. Why the biography also includes contemporary artists, Chanta...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Julie Summers chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about British Vogue: The Biography of an Icon Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: Why Julie Summers decided to craft an object biography of British Vogue. What Julie discovered by reading every issue of British Vogue since its launch in 1916. Why Julie portrayed British Vogue as a living, ev...