Biographers in Conversation

By GabriellaArts Books

Biographers in Conversation episodes

January 07Clare Wright OAM: "Näku Dhäruk - The Bark Petitions: How the People of Yirrkala Changed the Course of Australian Democracy"
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 Petitions collaboratively and authentically from a First Nation’s perspective.
The four Bark Petitions were created by Yolŋu Elders in 1963 as a form of diplomacy between two sovereign nations. The Yolŋu Elders were protesting bauxite mining on sacred lands without their consent.
The Bark Petitions reframes the petitions as a manifestation of Yolŋu law and territorial rights, revealing a sophisticated legal system governing land, kinship and governance that predates and rivals European colonial systems.
Wright positions The Bark Petitions as Australian political history with Indigenous perspectives restored.
The Bark Petitions transcends a classic object biography. Instead, it’s a hybrid of cultural storytelling, sacred stories, oral history, narrative history, political activism and a powerful account of sovereignty and resistance.
The Bark Petitions employs a kaleidoscopic, non-linear narrative structure.
Wright deliberately gives the final voice to a contemporary Yolŋu woman, emphasising that Indigenous people are living storytellers shaping ongoing national conversations and positioning the Bark Petitions as an eternal flame of resistance and knowledge.
59 min
December 31, 2025Summer Series - Andrew Ford’s ”The Shortest History of Music”
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 musical history
How he synthesised a multiplicity of musical traditions and cultures into a seamless narrative
How he balanced historical accuracy with masterful storytelling
Why he examined music from multiple angles: Its fundamental impulses; the impact of notation; music as a profession and commodity; the concept of modernism and the revolutionary effects of recording technology
How he skilfully weaved history, culture and personal insight into a tapestry that celebrates music in all its forms.
1 hr 2 min
December 24, 2025Summer Series - Oliver Soden "Jeoffry: The Poet’s Cat"
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 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.
57 min
December 17, 2025Josie McSkimming: "Gutsy Girls: Love, Poetry and Sisterhood"
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.
Why Gutsy Girls is a pioneering work placing sibling relationships at the centre of the narrative.
Why Josie waited until both her parents had died before publishing.
Why Josie shaped the 19 chapters of Gutsy Girls to mirror Dorothy Porter’s published and unpublished works chronologically, from her childhood creation ‘My Pocket Book of Prayer’ (spelled P-O-K-E-T), through to her acclaimed verse novels, including The Monkey’s Mask.
Why Josie chose the title Gutsy Girls.
How Josie found her own authentic voice beyond religious constraints, while honouring the strength of all three sisters who had to forge paths beyond childhood trauma and family expectations.
59 min
December 10, 2025Helen Trinca: "Looking for Elizabeth: The Life of Elizabeth Harrower"
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 Publishing republished her novels in 2012, bringing her far greater fame in her 80s than during her original writing career.
How Harrower’s traumatic childhood profoundly shaped her novels.
Elizabeth’s novels explore power dynamics, psychological abuse and relationships with spare, modern prose that resonates with contemporary readers.
Elizabeth’s crafted spare, psychologically astute observations about how power operates within relationships, from the tiniest gestures to systematic control. These themes speak directly to contemporary concerns about authoritarianism both in personal relationships and in wider society.
Why Trinca chose a conventional chronological structure, gradually revealing connections between Harrower's life and her intensely autobiographical novels.
How Harrower’s legacy lies in her relentless search for life’s deeper meaning.
55 min
December 03, 2025Dr Drusilla Modjeska: "A Woman’s Eye, Her Art: Reframing the Narrative through Art and Life"
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, Chantal Joffe and Julie Rapp.
The meaning of ‘a woman’s eye’.
Why Drusilla chose to write a collective rather than an individual biography.
Why Drusilla examined how these women reframed the male gaze through their art.
Why Drusilla chose a non-linear structure and collage form in three parts.
44 min
November 26, 2025Julie Summers' "British Vogue: The Biography of an Icon"
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, evolving personality.
How Julie brought a century of style, culture and power to life.
How British Vogue has reflected and shaped women’s lives for over a century.
The story behind the striking cover of British Vogue: The Biography of an Icon
How British Vogue became a cultural barometer.
British Vogue’s enduring ability to chronicle and shape British style, culture, and imagination.
45 min
November 19, 2025Diana Parsell "Eliza Scidmore: The Trailblazing Journalist Behind Washington’s Cherry Trees"
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 cherry trees.
Diana discusses Scidmore’s remarkable career as a travel writer, journalist, and early National Geographic board member.
Parsell reflects on the narrative power of her prologue, “A Grave in Yokohama,” and the decisions behind her book’s compelling structure.
She describes the challenges of researching a 19th-century woman whose archives were scattered, incomplete or inaccessible.
How Eliza’s personality, passions and persistence drove the plot of her biography.
How thematic timelines and scene-building created a vivid, cinematic portrayal of Scidmore’s global travels.
The literary techniques and authorial choices that shaped the biography’s immersive style and emotional depth.
Advice to first-time biographers about the balance between historical truth, narrative craft and ethical storytelling.
1 hr
November 12, 2025Dr Greg de Moore "Tom Wills: The Insubordinate Life of an Australian Sporting Legend"
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 remarkable life journey growing up among Aboriginal friends in the bush, captaining cricket at England’s elite Rugby School then returning to Australia to become a cricket star and co-inventor of Australian Rules.
Greg’s narrative choices to bring Wills’ world alive.
Why Greg framed Wills as ‘insubordinate’.
How Greg portrayed Wills’s rebellious streak.
How Greg approached writing about Wills’ dramatic downfall.
Why sharing Tom Wills’s story still matters.
1 hr 7 min
November 05, 2025Ray Boomhower: "The Ultimate Protest: Malcolm W. Browne, Thich Quang Duc, and the News Photograph That Stunned the World"
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’s iconic photograph of this tragic act shocked the world, igniting global outrage that influenced the course of the Vietnam War.
Why Boomhower chose The Ultimate Protest as the biography’s title.
How Boomhower braided biography with war history.
Boomhower’s meticulous behind-the-scenes research, from scouring archives and news reports to retracing Malcolm Browne’s footsteps in Vietnam.
How Boomhower captured Malcolm Browne’s voice and perspective despite never interviewing him.
How Boomhower depicted distressing and sacred moments with unflinching accuracy, empathy and cultural sensitivity.
The ethical dilemmas Boomhower grappled with in sharing Browne’s story.
52 min

About Biographers in Conversation

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Biographer Gabriella Kelly-Davies chats with biographers across the world about the myriad of choices they make while researching, writing and publishing life stories. In every episode, she explores…