Biographers in Conversation

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, 2025 National Biography Award winner Abbas El-Zein chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about his choices while crafting Bullet, Paper, Rock. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: Why Abbas shared his story in a series of short snapshots instead of one continuous timeline. This unconventional structure mirrors the way our memories surface, in...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, historian and author Dr Yves Rees chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about the choices they made while crafting Travelling to Tomorrow: The Modern Women Who Sparked Australia’s Romance with America. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: How a group of 10 pioneering women in the early 20th century dared to dream and defy convention by venturi...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Dr Anna Beer, the author of five acclaimed biographies and a Visiting Fellow at Kellogg College in Oxford, chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting Eve Bites Back: An Alternative History of English Literature. Eve Bites Back includes biographical sketches and reappraisals of eight talented female authors who lived, wrote...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, the acclaimed historians Dr Henry Reynolds and Dr Nicholas Clements chat with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about their choices while crafting Tongerlongeter: First Nations Leader and Tasmanian War Hero, the biography of the courageous Indigenous warrior, Tongerlongeter. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: Tongerlongeter’s story, like many Indig...

Patricia Meisol explores the life and legacy of Dr Helen Taussig, the pioneering mother of paediatric cardiology: How Helen Taussig exposed the dangers of thalidomide, helping to spark new U.S. drug safety legislation in the 1960s. Helen Taussig’s determination in overcoming personal challenges, including dyslexia and progressive hearing loss, to become a world leader in medicine. Patricia reflect...

Award-winning biographer Jacqueline Kent returns to the podcast to discuss her latest work, coauthored with historian Tom Roberts, about the iconic transgender model and activist April Ashley. A Life Reimagined – Born George Jamieson in Liverpool, April Ashley transitioned in 1960 and became one of the first Britons to undergo gender-affirming surgery. Jacqueline explores April’s remarkable transf...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, the intellectual historian Dr Robert Zaretsky chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about his choices while crafting The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas. Known as the ‘patron saint of all outsiders’, Simone Weil was one of the 20th century’s most remarkable thinkers, a philosopher who truly lived by her political and ethical ideals. Here’...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, the historian Dr Kiera Lindsey chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting Wild Love: The Ambitions of Adelaide Ironside, the First Australian Artist to Astonish the World.  Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: Adelaide Eliza Scott Ironside was a trailblazing Australian artist known for her passion, ambition and extr...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, the critically acclaimed author, Oxford scholar, literature teacher and performer Dr Sally Bayley chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about The Green Lady: A Spirit, A Story, A Place.  Part memoir, part fiction, The Green Lady is an experimental mix of biography, fiction and family history.   Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: The Green La...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, memoirist Lamisse Hamouda chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting The Shape of Dust. Lamisse co-authored this deeply disturbing account with her father Hazem Hamouda. It chronicles Hazem’s wrongful arrest in Egypt and Lamisse’s desperate 443-day struggle to free him from Tora, one of Egypt’s most notorious prisons. The S...

The name Miles Franklin might sound familiar to you. After all, she wrote My Brilliant Career, a debut novel that made her an overnight literary sensation at the age of 21. However, here’s the plot twist: just two years after that success, Miles Franklin vanished from the public eye. Where did she go? And what did she do during those ‘lost’ years? That’s the mystery we’re here to unravel in this e...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, the distinguished British biographer Oliver Soden chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about his choices while crafting Jeoffry: The Poet’s Cat. Jeoffry was a real cat who lived in a London asylum with Christopher Smart, an 18th-century poet. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: How Virginia Woolf’s Flush: A Biography, the imaginative biograp...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, the award-winning historian and author Dr Kate Fullagar chats with Dr Gabriella-Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting Bennelong & Phillip: A History Unravelled, the first joint biography of First Nations leader, Bennelong, and the first governor of the British Colony of New South Wales, Arthur Phillip. Here’s what you’ll discover in this...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, the historian Dr Pamela Toler chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting The Dragon from Chicago. The Untold Story of an American Reporter in Nazi Germany, the biography of Sigrid Schultz, the Chicago Tribune’s bureau chief in Berlin during Hitler’s rise to power.   Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: Why Pamela To...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Ashleigh Wilson chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies me about his choices while crafting Brett Whiteley: Art, Life and the Other Thing, his acclaimed biography of Brett Whiteley, one of Australia’s most iconic artists.   Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: The meaning of The Other Thing in the biography’s title Ashleigh’s surprise discoverie...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Dr Amy Reading chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at The New Yorker, the biography of Katharine Sergeant White, the first fiction editor of The New Yorker, an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Here’s...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Patchen Barss chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about his choices while crafting The Impossible Man: Roger Penrose and the Cost of Genius, the biography of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Roger Penrose.      Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:   Patchen Barss’s painstaking research strategy   How Patchen grasped complicated information abou...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Australia’s doyenne of biography, Brenda Niall, chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting: Joan Lindsay: The Hidden Life of the Woman Who Wrote Picnic at Hanging Rock.   Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: Brenda Niall’s inspiration for crafting Joan Lindsay: The Hidden Life of the Woman Who Wrote Picnic at Hangin...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, the multi-award-winning broadcaster, composer and author Andrew Ford chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about his choices while crafting, The Shortest History of Music. A lively, authoritative tour through 4,000 years of music, this book explores music’s role in human society.   Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: Andrew Ford explains how...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Dr Kate Kennedy, a distinguished cellist, musicologist, and Director of Oxford University’s Centre for Life Writing chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting Cello: A Journey Through Silence to Sound.   Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: Kate Kennedy’s inspiration for crafting Cello: A Journey Through Silence to...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, award-winning biographer Dr Bernadette Brennan chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting Leaping into Waterfalls: The Enigmatic Gillian Mears, a literary biography that explores the rich, tumultuous life of Gillian Mears, one of Australia’s most celebrated writers.   Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:  Gillian Me...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, the acclaimed author and art historian Dr Helen Ennis chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting Max Dupain: A Portrait, the first biography of the photographer Max Dupain, Australia’s most influential photographer of the 20th century.     Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:   Helen Ennis’s inspiration for crafting...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies chats with multi-award-winning author Anna Funder about her choices while crafting Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life. Wifedom resurrects Eileen O’Shaughnessy, a brilliant Oxford graduate who married George Orwell in 1936.       Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:    Anna Funder’s inspiration for writing Wifedom  ...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Jacqueline Kent chats with Gabriella about the choices she made while writing A Certain Style: Beatrice Davis, A Literary Life, the biography of Australia’s doyenne of publishing. .Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:  Jacqueline Kent’s inspiration for writing a second edition of A Certain Style after her first edition won the National Biogra...

Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:  In this episode of Biographers in Conversation Ashleigh Wilson chats with Gabriella about his book: A Year with Wendy Whiteley: Conversations About Art, Life and Gardening. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:  Ashleigh Wilson shares his inspiration for writing A Year with Wendy Whiteley: Conversations About Art, Life and Gardening and why he r...