To kick off Season One on 3 April 2024, I’ll chat with Peter FitzSimons about the choices he made while writing an epic biography of Sydney Opera House, one of the world’s most iconic buildings. Peter FitzSimons Here’s Peter talking about a vital aspect of his biography and some of the literary devices he employed ..read more

I’m a biographer endlessly fascinated by the multiplicity of choices biographers make when crafting a life story. When you read a biography, do you feel like you’re in the story living the biographical subject’s life, feeling what they’re feeling and seeing what they’re seeing? To stimulate your imagination this way, biographers make hundreds of decisions about how they research and write their ..read more

My “Between the Covers” interview about the many choices a biographer makes in searching for the truth of their subject: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt23816666/?ref_=ttep_ep140 ..read more

Father’s Day is just around the corner, and it’s time to show your dad how much you love and appreciate him. Finding the perfect gift for your dad can be a daunting task, especially if you’re looking for something unique. If he is someone who enjoys stories of perseverance, triumph and making a difference, we ..read more

Two years since Breaking through the pain barrier launched It’s National Pain Week and today, we commemorate the second anniversary of the inspiring biography, Breaking Through the Pain Barrier: The Extraordinary Life of Dr Michael J. Cousins, launched by the peak advocacy body, Painaustralia, which Michael Cousins launched in 2010. Dr Michael Cousins is a trailblazer ..read more

Arthur Akuien Chol: A Life Fighting for my people is my latest book, the life story of Arthur Akuien Chol, South Sudan’s first Minister of Finance after the country gained independence in July 2011. It chronicles Arthur Akuien Chol’s journey from his beginnings as a cattle boy in South Sudan, through his struggle to gain ..read more

The invisible woman in biographies of famous men I loved ‘Wifedom’ by Anna Funder. Her painstaking research about Eileen O’Shaughnessy, George Orwell’s first wife, astonished me with the intricate details of Eileen’s life. How did so many male Orwell biographers not find this same evidence? And how did Anna Funder find it when so many ..read more

Heather Mitchell I’m loving the acclaimed actress Heather Mitchell’s memoir, “Everything and Nothing”. It is so eloquent, but also sad, raw and disturbing in places, particularly when she recounts the impacts of deeply held family secrets on her. Also when she recounts recurring episodes of the sexual misconduct and criminal abuse so many women of ..read more

How Invisible was Nelly?  I’m re-reading and loving “The Invisible Women” by Claire Tomalin, the biography of Nelly Ternan, Charles Dickens’ secret lover of twelve years. In 1863, Dickens destroyed all letters written to him over his lifetime, but he could not convince people who had received letters from him to eradicate them. After his ..read more

Celebrating our last night in Oxford. Every conversation, tutorial, writing workshop and meeting with scholars across biography, life writing, English Literature, medical humanities and the history of medicine sparked ideas that resulted in breakthroughs in my writing. While in Oxford, I decided to launch ‘Writing the Scientist’s Life’, a weekly podcast of interviews with science ..read more