Biographers in Conversation

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...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Dr Nigel Hamilton chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Lincoln vs. Davis: The War of the Presidents.

Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:

• Lincoln vs. Davis is the first dual biography to examine how Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis fought each other as pr...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Dr Zachary Leader chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Ellmann’s Joyce: The Biography of a Masterpiece and Its Maker.

Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: 

• Richard Ellmann’s biography of the novelist James Joyce is considered the greatest literary bio...

In this latest episode of Biographers in Conversation, Dr Micaela Sahhar chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting Find Me at the Jaffa Gate: An Encyclopaedia of a Palestinian Family.

Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:

• The death of Micaela Sahhar’s grandmother’s last surviving si...

In this latest episode of Biographers in Conversation, Professor Karen Fang chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting Background Artist: The Life and Work of Tyrus Wong.

Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:

• Karen Fang explains why only a full-length biography could do justice to Tyrus Wong’s 106-year life that e...

In this latest episode of Biographers in Conversation, award-winning author Dr Debra Adelaide chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting When I Am Sixty-Four.

Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: 

• When I Am Sixty-Four is a tender, poignant story based on Debra Adelaide’s lifelon...

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Troy Bramston chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Gough Whitlam: The Vista of the New. This is the first full biography of Gough Whitlam, a former Australian Prime Minister, since his death in 2014.

Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:

• The biography&rs...