Biographers in Conversation

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...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Diana Parsell chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting Eliza Scidmore: The Trailblazing Journalist Behind Washington’s Cherry Trees. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: Diana Parsell reveals how a reprinted travelogue led her to the forgotten story of Eliza Scidmore, a pioneering woman behind Washington’s iconic...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Dr Greg de Moore chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about his choices while crafting Tom Wills: The Insubordinate Life of an Australian Sporting Legend. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: How Greg de Moore first stumbled upon Tom Wills’ forgotten story Why Greg felt compelled to rescue Tom Will’s legendary tale from obscurity. Wills’s rem...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Ray Boomhower chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about his choices while crafting The Ultimate Protest: Malcolm W. Browne, Thích Quảng Đức, and the News Photograph That Stunned the World. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: The powerful story behind Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức’s 1963 self-immolation protest in Saigon. How Malcolm Browne’...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Dr Bron Bateman chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while editing Women of a Certain Courage. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: The drive behind Women of a Certain Courage, including why Bron set out to challenge traditional male-centric hero narratives and celebrate everyday women’s bravery. How Bron handpicked 18 diver...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, 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. How the book’s structure...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, the musician and author Dr Jillian Graham chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting Inner Song. A Biography of Margaret Sutherland, the life story of the ‘Grand Old Lady of Classical Music.’ Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: Margeret Sutherland was a child prodigy, composer, pianist and teacher. She composed mor...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Dr David Veltman, Dr Daniel Meister and Professor Hans Renders chat with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Biography Across the Digitized Globe: Essays in Honour of Hans Renders. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: David and Daniel edited this collection of essays to honour Hans’s pioneering role in the field of biography. Diverse perspectives...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Shauna Bostock chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting Reaching Through Time: Finding My Family’s Stories. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: The shocking late-night phone Shauna Bostock received that ignited her determination to unearth her family’s true history. How Shauna traced over 200 years of her Indigen...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Sebastian Smee chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about his choices while crafting Paris in Ruins: How Love, War and Art Gave Birth to Impressionism. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: How the chaos of war and revolution in 1870s Paris shaped the birth of Impressionism. Why the relationship between Édouar...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, multi-award-winning biographer Dr Heather Clark chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: Why Heather Clark intentionally shifts the narrative away from Sylvia Plath’s tragic death to celebrate her vibrant life and liter...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, award-winning political historian and biographer Dr Judith Brett chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting Fearless Beatrice Faust: Sex, Feminism and Body Politics. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: How Judith Brett discovered Beatrice Faust’s story. Why Judith was inspired to craft Fearless Beatrice Faust.  How...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Dr Charlotte Jacobs chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting 90 Seconds to Midnight: A Hiroshima Survivor’s Nuclear Odyssey. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:  Charlotte Jacobs’s inspiration for crafting 90 Seconds to Midnight. How Charlotte gained insights into Setsuko’s inner world. How Charlotte balanced Set...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, lawyer and author Sam Elkin chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about his choices while crafting Detachable Penis: A Queer Legal Saga. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: Sam’s thought process behind structuring the memoir as a chronological legal saga intertwining his gender transition with pivotal moments in Australia’s LGBTQ+ rights move...

Nathan Hobby shares his choices while crafting The Red Witch; A Biography of Katharine Susannah Prichard. Here’s what you’ll discover: Katharine Susannah Prichard’s significance as a trailblazing Australian novelist and political figure who co-founded the Australian Communist Party How Pritchard’s ground-breaking novels reflected her social ideals Nathan’s extensive research process, from scouring...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, multi-award-winning biographer Megan Marshall chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting After Lives: On Biography and the Mysteries of the Human Heart. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: Why a renowned biographer turned the lens on herself, blending memoir with biography after decades of writing about other peopl...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, multi-award-winning journalist and author Kate Legge chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting Kindred: A Cradle Mountain Love Story. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: The remarkable true love story of Gustav Weindorfer (an Austrian immigrant) and Kate Cowle (a trailblazing Tasmanian mountaineer), and how their...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, eminent sociologist and author Dr Nikos Papastergiadis chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about his choices while crafting John Berger and Me. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: How Nikos’s habit of writing from memory each morning during COVID lockdowns helped shape John Berger and Me.   The power of memory in storytelling and how writin...