Biographers in Conversation
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 elements of narrative strategy such as structure, use of fiction techniques, facts and truth, beginnings and endings and to what extent the writer interpreted the evidence rather than providing clues and leaving it to readers to do the interpreting themselves. She also asks how they researched their books; how they balanced a subject’s public, personal and inner lives; and ethical issues, such as privacy and revealing secrets.
Episodes
In this latest episode of Biographers in Conversation, Anna Thomasson chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about A Vast Horizon: Artists and Lovers, Freedom and War.
Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
- Why Anna Thomasson chose a collective biography to reveal the chemistry and interconnected lives of nine surrealists.
- How a ...
In this latest episode of Biographers in Conversation, Tim Dobbyn chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Black, White + Colour: A Biography of Mervyn Bishop Australia's First Indigenous Professional Photographer
Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
- Mervyn Bishop joined the Sydney Morning Herald at 17, becoming Austr...
In this latest episode of Biographers in Conversation, Joshua Kendall chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Trudeau & Doonesbury: The Cartoonist Who Turned the News into Art
Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
- Why Joshua Kendall conceived of Trudeau & Doonesbury as a dual biography of the reclusive cartoonist Ga...
In this latest episode of Biographers in Conversation, Dr James Bailey chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark.
Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
- Why James structures Spark’s life as nine partial portraits rather than a unified chronological narrative.
- ...
In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Dr Nigel Cameron chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Dr Koop: The Many Lives of the Surgeon General.
Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
- Why Nigel Cameron opened the narrative with a preface portraying the octogenarian Dr C. Everett Koop.
- Nigel chose the title, The Many Lives of the Surgeon General, to reflect Koop’s mul...
In this latest episode of Biographers in Conversation, Dr Kathryn Heyman chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Circle of Wonders.
Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
- ‘Circle of Wonders’ is a novel about a group of women who gather in the Blue Mountains to support their friend Ronnie Bloom through the final month of her life.
- ‘Circle of Wonders’ began as a memoir shortly af...
In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Jeffrey Meyers chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Parallel Lives: From Freud and Mann to Arbus and Plath
Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
- Jeffrey Meyers adopted Plutarch’s parallel lives approach in Parallel Lives, pairing famous figures to...
In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Adam Plunkett chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Love and Need: The Life of Robert Frost’s Poetry.
Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
- Why Adam Plunkett spent a decade researching Frost’s life, including accessing previously ove...
In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Dr Ramie Targoff chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Shakespeare’s Sisters: Four Women Who Wrote the Renaissance.
Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
- Ramie Targoff selected four female contemporaries of Shakespeare who were publicly recogni...
In this latest episode of Biographers in Conversation, Robert Dessaix chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Chameleon: A Memoir of Art, Travel, Ideas and Love.
Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
- Chameleon was shortlisted for the 2026 National Biography Award, with judges calling it ‘vintage&nb...
In this latest episode of Biographers in Conversation, S. Shakthidharan (Shakthi) chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about his choices while crafting Gather Up Your World in One Long Breath.
Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
- Gather Up Your World in One Long Breath centres on the family home Shakthi’s grandmother dismantled piece by piece in Sri Lanka and rebuilt in Western Syd...
In this special episode of Biographers in Conversation for the National Biography Award, Dr Micaela Sahhar chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting the award-winning Find Me at the Jaffa Gate: An Encyclopaedia of a Palestinian Family.
Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
- Micaela Sahhar won th...
In this special episode of Biographers in Conversation for the 2026 National Biography Award, Dr Helen Ennis chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting Max Dupain: A Portrait.
Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
- Helen Ennis received the prestigious 2026 National Biography Award for Max Du...
In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Sophia Lambton chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about The Callas Imprint: A Centennial Biography.
Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
- Why the narrative opened with a prologue about Maria Callas’s artistry.
- How exhaustive research revealed ...
In this latest episode of Biographers in Conversation, Erin Vincent chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting Fourteen Ways of Looking.
Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
- In Fourteen Ways of Looking, Erin Vincent revisits the tragic year when both her paren...
In this latest episode of Biographers in Conversation, Dr Martin Thomas chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Clever Men: How Worlds Collided on the Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land of 1948.
Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
- Martin Thomas’s research began in the ABC’s sound ar...
In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Dr Judith Mackrell, one of Britain’s most eminent biographers, chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting Artists, Siblings, Visionaries: The Lives and Loves of Gwen and Augustus John.
Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
- Artists, Sibl...
In this latest episode of Biographers in Conversation, Dr Sylvia Martin chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Double Act: Eirene Mort and Nora Kate Weston.
Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
- While Eirene Mort was a designer, black & white illustrator, watercolourist, etcher, tapestry worker and potter, N...
In this latest episode of Biographers in Conversation, Cynthia Banham chats with Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Mother Shadow: A Meditation on Maternal Inheritance.
Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
- A hybrid of biographical reimagining, lyrical memoir and transnational family history, Mother Shadow is po...
In this latest episode of Biographers in Conversation, Sheryle Bagwell chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Letter from Provence: Two Women, Two Centuries and a Village House in France.
Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
- Sheryle Bagwell explains how the chance discovery of a dust-covered volume of Madame de Sévig...
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