The name Miles Franklin might sound familiar to you. After all, she wrote My Brilliant Career, a debut novel that made her an overnight literary sensation at the age of 21. However, here’s the plot twist: just two years after that success, Miles Franklin vanished from the public eye. Where did she go? And what did she do during those ‘lost’ years?

That’s the mystery we’re here to unravel in this episode of Biographers in Conversation when Dr Kerrie Davies chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Miles Franklin Undercover: The Little-Known Years When She Created Her Own Brilliant Career.

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

• Miles Franklin’s extraordinary life
• Kerrie’s discovery of an unpublished manuscript that describes Mile’s ‘undercover’ activities as a domestic servant
• How Kerrie portrays Miles’s evolution from a novelist to domestic servant then women’s right activist
• How Miles’s character drives the plot of Miles Franklin Undercover
• How Kerrie balances Miles’s strong literary voice with her own as the narrator
• How Kerrie contextualises Miles’s life and choices within their broader historical, social and cultural landscape
• The literary devices Kerrie employs to craft captivating narrative while staying true to the historical record
• The crucial importance of uncovering hidden chapters of history, reminding us that even our celebrated figures have untold stories waiting to be discovered.