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 the behind the scenes coaches who have  helped sharpen Federer’s reflexes and strategy, about Federer’s temperament, his closest inner circle, his rivals Nadal and Djokovic,  and reflects on how a written sports biography compares with increasingly popular sports screen documentaries.

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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 image to a seamless degree. She sleuths Child’s unpromising loveless childhood, his lifelong addictions, his desire for revenge of past wrongs, and his shrewd, strategic approach to every aspect of becoming a bestseller.

Produced by David Roach for Two Heads media and Jennifer Macey.

Music composed and performed by Amanda Brown and produced by Lilly Pilli. 

This podcast is made on Dharrawal country.

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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 a fragile but ambitious personality with original and  mercurial talent, plagued by mental health issues, and struggling with the intensity of her relationship with her mother and her husband Ted Hughes.

Produced by David Roach for Two Heads media and Jennifer Macey.

Music composed and performed by Amanda Brown and produced by Lilly Pilli.

This podcast is made on Dharrawal country.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 examines her  difficult family history to paint a nuanced and often very moving portrait of a woman with a strong sense of honour and a steely courage. 

She also tells the story of a previous  quest which yielded every biographer’s dream - a cache of unpublished material whose contents were explosive.

Produced by David Roach for Two Heads Media and Jennifer Macey

Music composed and performed by Amanda Brown and produced by Lilly Pilli 

This podcast is made on Dharrawal country.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. 

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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 remarkable story.

Producers: Jennifer Macey and David Roach

Life Sentences is a Two Heads Media production

Music:Blue Dot Sessions

www. carolinebaum.com.au

All the books in this series are available from good bookshops and online.

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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 Sentences is a Two Heads Media production

Music: Blue Dot Sessions

www. carolinebaum.com.au

All the books in this series are available from good bookshops and online.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 is a Two Heads Media production

Music: Blue Dot Sessions

www. carolinebaum.com.au

All the books in this series are available from good bookshops and online.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

All the books in this series are available from good bookshops and online.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

Music: Blue Dot Sessions

www.carolinebaum.com.au

All the books in this series are available from good bookshops and online.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.