Telling Lives: The Seymour Biography Lecture 2005-2023

The Seymour Biography Lecture was presented annually at the Australian National University and the National Library of Australia from 2005 to 2023, by eminent biographers, autobiographers and memoirists.

Author Chris Wallace (editor)

Publication Date 16 Sep 2024

General non-fiction

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From political profiles to ‘tragic poems’, this collection of lectures investigates the philosophical scaffolding that holds up the form of biography and the deft skill required to tell the truth of a life beautifully.

Over 17 years, internationally significant authors have spoken on topics such as Biography and the Struggle for the Soul of Australia (Jill Roe, 2007), Truth. Truthfulness. Self. Voice. (Raimond Gaita, 2017) and Honouring the Biographer’s Contract (Chris Wallace, 2023).

Interrogate the art of life-writing with thoughtfulness, humour and candour along with:

Dr Brenda Niall AO
Professor Lawrence Goldman
Emeritus Professor Jill Roe AO
Richard Holmes
Dr David Day
Professor Frances Spalding CBE
Robert Dessaix
Professor Jeffrey Meyers
Drusilla Modjeska
Professor Ray Monk
Robert Drewe
David Marr
Raimond Gaita
Richard Fidler
Emeritus Professor Judith Brett AM
Jacqueline Kent
Professor Chris Wallace

What we now want from a biography, or autobiography, is the very thing that Virginia Woolf said that we have no right to want: art. Not only art, obviously, but art nevertheless. And we love the illumination of dark corners of the soul, having quite a few of our own, if we’re honest with ourselves.

Robert Dessaix

Reviews

Richard Freadman, Australian Book Review

Contributors to volumes of essays are perhaps too readily claimed to be 'eminent'; but in the case of Telling Lives, it really is the case, and the volume is consistently accessible, authoritative and enjoyable. Read more at: That blue river