Biographers in Conversation

Robert Zaretsky "The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas"

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’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
Why Robert Zaretsky chose the title: The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas
Why Simone’s ideals and philosophies are so relevant today, 80 years after her death
How Robert grasped Simone’s thinking and behaviour given her contradictory, paradoxical character that baffled her many biographers
Why Robert crafted a hybrid of biography and philosophy
Why he explored Simone’s philosophies and search for truth through the prism of her life rather than crafting a traditional biography
Why he structured the book around five chapters that present Simone’s core philosophies
How he portrayed Simone’s ideas with clarity and grace, given her enigmatic character, behaviour and philosophies
The literary devices he employed to craft sensitive, compelling and lyrical narrative
How Robert challenged the myths surrounding Simone Weil.

Kiera Lindsey's "Wild Love: The Ambitions of Adelaide Ironside, the First Australian Artist to Astonish the World"

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 extraordinary talent. Born in Sydney in 1831, she challenged artistic boundaries by exploring themes such as identity, sexuality and spirituality
Why Kiera Lindsey challenged the traditional narrative of Australian art history
Why Adelaide Ironside’s story is still so relevant today
How Kiera painstakingly pieced together tiny scraps of evidence from 19th-century historical records in which women were mostly invisible
How following in Adelaide’s footsteps in colonial Sydney, London, Rome, Florence and Scotland from 200 years ago contributed to the narrative
The limits Kiera placed on her imagination when speculating to fill gaps in the fragmentary historical record
How Kiera portrayed the cultural norms, societal values and prevailing ideologies in which Adelaide successfully pursued her artistic ambitions
How Kiera interpreted Adelaide’s romantic mysticism, which appeared in her poetry and paintings
The art and craft of speculative biography, as well as its relevance and impacts.

Sally Bayley: "The Green Lady: A Spirit, A Story, A Place"

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 Lady explores a child’s search for artistic education and a sense of self. Lyrical and playful, Sally Bayley’s writing transports readers into an eccentric world of teachers, guardians and guiding spirits of place. Moved by her female teachers, and guided by the artist J.M.W. Turner, Bayley’s protagonist goes in search of her maternal ancestors, especially her grandmother, Edna May Turner.
Sally’s inspiration for crafting The Green Lady, the final book in her experimental literary coming of age trilogy of a young girl immersing herself in the world of lyrical language and poetry
Why Sally crafted The Green Lady as an experimental mix of biography, fiction and family history
The meaning of the title, The Green Lady
How The Green Lady continued Virginia Woolf’s Orlando as an imagined biography
How Sally crafted deeply sensory and visceral narrative filled with vivid visual imagery, poetry, music, song, drama and movement
Sally’s response to the question: ‘Who gets to be the subject of a biography and have their life told, and who remains invisible?’

Lamisse Hamouda: "The Shape of Dust"

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 Shape of Dust won the 2024 National Biography Award.
Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
The meaning of the book’s title The Shape of Dust
Why Lamisse and Hazem decided to craft The Shape of Dust when it risked triggering the horrific trauma of their experiences
Why Lamisse framed the story around trauma
How Lamisse navigated multiple languages, cultures and worlds while crafting The Shape of Dust
Why Lamisse structured the book in three parts, with Part One comprising first-person accounts of what happened day by day, with Lamisse and Hazem taking it in turns to narrate their experiences
Lamisse’s literary choices to reduce the terror and brutality of Hazem’s experiences for them as the authors and their readers
Lamisse’s ethical decisions on which aspects of Hazem’s story to share
The extent to which Lamisse self-censored her commentary about Egyptian and Australian politics; Australia’s consular services in Egypt; and Australian journalists
How writing The Shape of Dust has changed Lamisse’s perception of colonisation and systemic racism in Australia.
 

Kerrie Davies's "Miles Franklin Undercover: The Little-Known Years When She Created Her Own Brilliant Career"

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 episode of Biographers in Conversation when Dr Kerrie Davies chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Miles Franklin Undercover: The Little-Known Years When She Created Her Own Brilliant Career. 
Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
Miles Franklin’s extraordinary life
Kerrie’s discovery of an unpublished manuscript that describes Mile’s ‘undercover’ activities as a domestic servant
How Kerrie portrays Miles’s evolution from a novelist to domestic servant then women’s right activist
How Miles’s character drives the plot of Miles Franklin Undercover
How Kerrie balances Miles’s strong literary voice with her own as the narrator
How Kerrie contextualises Miles’s life and choices within their broader historical, social and cultural landscape
The literary devices Kerrie employs to craft captivating narrative while staying true to the historical record
The crucial importance of uncovering hidden chapters of history, reminding us that even our celebrated figures have untold stories waiting to be discovered.

Oliver Soden "Jeoffry: The Poet’s Cat"

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 biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s cocker spaniel, influenced Oliver Soden’s choices while crafting The Poet’s Cat
How Oliver cleverly used Jeoffry as a lens through which to explore Christopher Smart’s character, personality and often troubled life
How Oliver retraced Jeoffry’s and Christopher Smart’s real and imagined footsteps in 18th-century London, discovering its vibrant cast of characters such as King George, the composer Handel and Samuel Johnson, one of the towering figures of British literature
How Oliver balanced fact and fiction given his admission that ‘the dividing line between fact and fiction is necessarily wobbly’ in The Poet’s Cat, and ‘sometimes one is disguised as the other’
How Oliver accessed Jeoffry’s interior life and inner monologue, enabling him to write from the perspective of an 18th-century alley cat
How Oliver shifted from the traditional, scholarly tone and narrative style of his biographies of the composer Michael Tippett and playwright Noël Coward to the whimsical, witty, affectionate and playful style of The Poet’s Cat
How Oliver balanced the lightheartedness of Jeoffry’s antics with the book’s deeper philosophical themes.

Kate Fullagar "Bennelong & Phillip: A History Unravelled"

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 episode:
Why Bennelong & Phillip is still so relevant, over 200 years since the events depicted in it occurred
Why Kate Fullagar structured the narrative around the intertwined lives of Bennelong and Arthur Phillip rather than crafting separate biographies
Why Kate plotted the events in Bennelong’s and Phillip’s lives in reverse order, starting with the two leaders’ funerals
How Kate reconciled the literary challenges in crafting events in reverse order
How Kate pieced together and interpreted thousands of fragments of evidence that were biased by a colonial lens and lacked an Indigenous perspective
The vital evidence that enabled Kate to challenge the prevailing image of Bennelong as a tragic victim and outcast of his community
The complexities of intercultural encounters, particularly the power dynamics, cultural misunderstandings and moments of genuine connection that shaped the interactions between Bennelong and Phillip
Why deeply researched, revisionist accounts of a life and events are so vital in an authentic portrayal of our nation’s history and the individuals who created that history
How Bennelong & Phillip encourages us to confront the complexities of the past and engage in ongoing conversations about reconciliation and justice.

Pamela Toler's "The Dragon from Chicago. The Untold Story of an American Reporter in Nazi Germany"

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 Toler chose The Dragon from Chicago as the biography’s title
Why Sigrid Schultz’s story is still so relevant today
How Pamela responded to gaps and misinformation in the historical record
How she reconstructed scenes from Sigrid’s life that reflected escalating intimidation and imminent danger in Nazi Germany
How Pamela balanced her voice as the narrator with Sigrid’s voice and point of view
How Pamela balanced Sigrid’s professional and public life with her human story
How Pamela contextualised Sigrid’s life and choices within their broader historical, social and cultural landscape.

Ashleigh Wilson's "Brett Whiteley: Art, Life and the Other Thing"

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 discoveries and how they shaped the narrative
How Ashleigh verified the many colourful anecdotes about Brett Whiteley
How he reconciled the layers of myth surrounding Whiteley’s art and life
Why he structured Whiteley’s biography chronologically
How Whiteley’s mercurial character drove the plot
How Ashleigh portrayed Whiteley’s complex relationship with Australia and his desire to be recognised on the international stage
How Ashleigh balanced Whiteley’s public persona and human story
Ashleigh’s ethical decisions when revealing Whiteley’s mental health issues and addictions
The literary devices Ashleigh employed to balance academic rigour with crafting a captivating and propulsive narrative
The extent to which Ashleigh believes he got to the truth of his biographical subject.

Amy Reading's "The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at The New Yorker"

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 what you’ll discover in this episode:
Amy Reading’s inspiration for crafting The World She Edited
How The World She Edited provides a long overdue corrective to the male-dominated lens through which America’s literary history during the 20th century and the rise of The New Yorker have been portrayed
How Amy portrayed Katharine’s challenges, including sexism, misogyny, paternalism and backhanded insults
The extent to which Amy interpreted Katharine’s correspondence with her authors
How Amy narrowed the biographical scope given that the ‘finding aid’ to Katharine’s archival collection runs to 800 pages
How Amy crafted lucid, elegant narrative, evoking the style Katharine infused throughout The New Yorker
Why Amy argued for the importance of Katharine’s forgotten work and made a larger argument about female readers as the drivers of literary culture.