Life Sentences Podcast

When Hazel Rowley died, the Australian biographer was at the peak of her career, having cemented a reputation for writing richly engaging and throughly researched biographies of figures including Christine Stead, black American writer Richard Wright, and power couples Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre, and Eleanor and Franklin D Roosevelt.  But how did the Adelaide academic achieve her...

What is the secret to Roger Federer’s dominance of tennis?   NYT Sporstwriter and biographer Christopher Clarey has had  unparalleled access to the player over twenty years and seen is development from gifted but temperamental teenager to global elite athlete, as he documents in The Master: The Brilliant Career of Roger Federer. In the course of this conversation Clarey talks about...

Never before has a thriller writer had a biography written by a literary academic. But Lee Child is a global phenomenon who defies easy categorisation and Australian scholar Heather Martin is not only a fan, but convinced that he has real heft, earning him a spot among some serious heavy hitters. In this episode, she maps the trajectory of how Lee Child created his hero Jack Reacher in his own ima...

Weighing in at nearly a thousand pages, this enthralling biography is the eleventh of American poet Sylvia Plath. But its emphasis is very different, thanks to Heather Clark’s determination to counter the obsession with her death and focus instead on Plath’s blazing talent and vitality.  With unparalleled access to  archives and never-before published material, Clark reveals...

At the height of the Cold War, Ethel Rosenberg  was the first woman in America to be electrocuted for a crime other than murder, accused of being a Soviet spy, together with her husband Julius. She was thirty seven and the mother of two small boys.  In her  meticulous biography, British biographer Anne Sebba  separates out Ethel’s story from her husband’s and examin...

Life Sentences is back for Season 2. The best biographers in the business tell Caroline Baum about getting access to previously closed archives and co-operation from some of the world’s most famous subjects.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Long before self help books became a multi-million dollar industry when anxiety was not  a subject of public conversation,  Dr Claire Weekes, an intrepid Australian scientist found a way to cure anxiety and teach sufferers how to manage their panic attacks. Her books became international best-sellers, but her name became forgotten with time.  Judith Hoare’s biography tells her...

Why would anyone write a 700 page doorstop about Australia’s supposedly worst-ever prime minister, especially when his leadership lasted less than two years? As a novice of the genre, Patrick Mullins set himself a mammoth task, and faced daunting obstacles, but the result, Tiberius With A Telephone, won him the National Biography Award.  Producers: Jennifer Macey and David Roach Life Se...

Sport has produced very few worthwhile biographies that are not just PR. But Patrick Skene has written a multi-faceted portrait of pioneer Pasifika rugby league player Olsen Filipaina, exploring his deep Maori/Samoan identity. His closeness to his mother and his wife helped him withstand the setbacks and racist slurs that plagued his career. Producers: Jennifer Macey and David Roach Life Sentences...

In this episode, feminist biographer Helen Ennis talks about the life of photographer Olive Cotton and how she addressed her subject’s natural reticence and modesty to bring the attention she deserved to a major Australian artist of the 20th century.  Life Sentences is a Two Heads Media production Producers: David Roach and Jennifer Macey Music: Blue Dot Sessions www.carolinebaum.com.au...

In this episode, Robert Wainwright talks about the gold he found in archives while researching the story of Sheila Chisholm, a  glamorous Australian who became intimate with the royal family and how that led him to his next subject, Enid Lindeman, another prominent figure in the most exclusive circles. Life Sentences is a Two Heads Media production Producers: David Roach and Jennifer Macey Mu...

In this episode, Caroline talks to biographer Jacqueline Kent about wrangling a subject’s  relatives and  dealing with critics as part of of her experience writing the biographies of Julia Gillard and early Australian feminist Vida Goldstein. Life Sentences is a Two Heads Media production Producers: David Roach and Jennifer Macey Music: Blue Dot Sessions www.carolinebaum.com.au All...

In this episode,  Caroline talks to Mark Mordue about the personal cost of spending ten years writing about musician Nick Cave, why he decided to alter his original concept of what the biography should be, focussing on Cave’s childhood and adolescence and his access to Cave’s friends and family. Life Sentences is a Two Heads Media production Producers: David Roach and Jennifer Mac...

In this episode, Caroline talks to controversial Tasmanian historian and essayist Cassandra Pybus about her unique connection to Truganini, one of the most famous First Nations figures in the island’s history. Cassandra  corrects several misconceptions about Truganini’s life at a time of brutal change.  Life Sentences is a Two Heads Media production Producers: David Roach and...

Just like a detective, the biographer‘s quest can lead down rabbit holes, but can also result in thrilling discoveries. Coming soon,  Life Sentences is a new podcast hosted by author Caroline Baum who talks to some of our best biographers about what it's like to spend years sifting through the evidence of other people's lives. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.