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.

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Dr Bron Bateman chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while editing Women of a Certain Courage.

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

• The drive behind Women of a Certain Courage, including why Bron set out to challenge traditional male-centric hero narratives and celebrate everyday women’s bravery.
• How Bron handpicked 18 diverse women writers—Indigenous activists, queer and trans voices and women with disabilities—to share first-person stories of courage from across Australia.
• A peek into Bron’s editing process: how her poet’s eye for imagery and rhythm helped shape the anthology’s powerful emotional journey.
• The common threads of resilience, healing and transformation that connect these diverse stories and how each woman emerges stronger after adversity.
• Bron’s fresh take on what courage really means, highlighting that heroism isn’t always loud. It can be found in small acts of persistence and speaking your truth in everyday life.
• Why sharing these stories creates a ripple effect of bravery, inspiring others to find their own courage.
• Why Bron believes every act of courage, no matter how small, matters.

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Dr Stephen J. Campbell chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about his choices while crafting Leonardo da Vinci: An Untraceable Life.

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

• Why Stephen Campbell resists the urge to create a seamless narrative and instead embraces the mystery, silence and gaps in Leonardo da Vinci’s story.
• How the book’s structure reflects the fragmented reality of Leonardo’s life.
• The origin of the book’s title and how it challenges traditional biographical expectations by leaning into ambiguity.
• How Campbell uses philosophical chapter titles and historical nuance to explore mythmaking and modern interpretations of Leonardo da Vinci.
• Why Campbell avoids speculation and instead invites readers to sit with what we don’t know, treating uncertainty as revealing rather than inconvenient.
• The biographer’s role as a curator of questions rather than authority, a model of life writing that prioritises transparency over certainty.
• The myths the book gently dismantles, from the lonely genius trope to misconceptions about Leonardo’s inventions and personality.
• How An Untraceable Life encourages us to rethink what biography can be and to rediscover awe in the unresolvable aspects of a life.

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, the musician and author Dr Jillian Graham chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting Inner Song. A Biography of Margaret Sutherland, the life story of the ‘Grand Old Lady of Classical Music.’

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

• Margeret Sutherland was a child prodigy, composer, pianist and teacher. She composed more than 200 works and was an influential champion of both contemporary and Australian music
• Margaret Sutherland’s role in Australia’s cultural history and why she still matters, 40 years after her death
• How Jillian Graham narrowed the biographical scope given the avalanche of evidence she sourced during her painstaking research
• How Margaret’s character drove the plot of Inner Song
• How Jillian balanced Margaret’s voice and perspective and her voice as the narrator
• How Jillian balanced Margaret’s public persona and professional accomplishments with her human story
• How Jillian reconciled conflicting opinions about Margaret Sutherland
• Why it was so vital to bring Margaret Sutherland’s story to a new generation of readers and music lovers.

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Dr David Veltman, Dr Daniel Meister and Professor Hans Renders chat with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Biography Across the Digitized Globe: Essays in Honour of Hans Renders.

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

• David and Daniel edited this collection of essays to honour Hans’s pioneering role in the field of biography.
• Diverse perspectives on how digital sources and global connections are reshaping how we share life stories.
• Why biography remains a vital, evolving genre despite deliberate disinformation and an Orwellian subversion of truthfulness in politics and public conversation.
• Why is it vital to consider biographical traditions from around the world.
• Diverse perspectives on how digital sources and global connections are reshaping how we share life stories.
• The value of a biography lies not in its adherence to a single, monolithic ‘truth’, but in its ability to offer an authentic, authoritative and empathetic exploration of a human life.
• Biography’s future given the emergence of AI.

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Shauna Bostock chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting Reaching Through Time: Finding My Family’s Stories.

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

• The shocking late-night phone Shauna Bostock received that ignited her determination to unearth her family’s true history.
• How Shauna traced over 200 years of her Indigenous family history amid scant and fragmented records.
• Shauna’s unique approach to storytelling: blending biography, history, memoir and oral storytelling.
• How Shauna balanced being a rigorous historian and a loving descendant.
• How Shauna alternated between close-up personal scenes and wide-angle historical context.
• Why Shauna Bostock sees her book as part of Australia’s broader truth-telling movement, an effort to openly acknowledge Indigenous history and the injustices of the past.

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Sebastian Smee chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about his choices while crafting Paris in Ruins: How Love, War and Art Gave Birth to Impressionism.

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

• How the chaos of war and revolution in 1870s Paris shaped the birth of Impressionism.
• Why the relationship between Édouard Manet and Berthe Morisot was central to the book and the Impressionist Movement.
• How Impressionism’s quick brushwork and light fixation reflect trauma, urgency and impermanence.
• Why Smee gives Berthe Morisot equal prominence and reinterprets her legacy in a male-dominated art world.
• What it means to write empathetic, narrative-driven biography while honouring archival truth.
• Why art made in crisis can speak across generations and offer hope, resistance and resilience.

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, multi-award-winning biographer Dr Heather Clark chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath.

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

• Why Heather Clark intentionally shifts the narrative away from Sylvia Plath’s tragic death to celebrate her vibrant life and literary achievements.
• Why Heather emphasises Sylvia Plath’s ambition, joy and creative courage as a young woman navigating the mid-20th-century’s literary culture.
• The challenge of navigating an avalanche of archival material to find the narrative thread in Plath’s life.
• How Heather balanced rigorous scholarship with the art of storytelling, giving Red Comet the propulsive narrative energy of a novel despite its scholarly depth.
• How Heather portrayed Plath’s inner life with empathy and honesty.
• How Heather focuses on Plath’s literary significance, repositioning her among the most important writers of the 20th century.
• How by challenging one-dimensional stereotypes, Red Comet invites a new appreciation of Plath’s genius and legacy beyond the shadow of her death.