In Conversation with Kerrie Davies Miles Franklin Undercover
6pm, Monday 14 July
Harry Hartog ANU Campus
University Avenue, Acton, ACT, 2601
After the success and celebrity of her coming-of-age novel My Brilliant Career, published when Miles Franklin was only 21, she disappeared. This is the story of the decade that made her second career as a fearless advocate for working women.
'There is a theory that any woman can be rescued from the shoals of failure and despair by finding some man to ask her in marriage, but before I could be happy in love I should at least need to realise myself.'
She dazzled Australia with her rebellious novel My Brilliant Career, inspiring generations of young women chafing under conventional expectations. Only 21, Miles Franklin was lauded as the Bronte of the bush and feted by the rich and influential.
But fame can be deceptive. In reality, the book earned her a pittance. The family farm was sold, her new novels were rejected, and she was broke. Just two years after her debut, Miles disappeared.
In this real-life sequel to My Brilliant Career, author Kerrie Davies uncovers a little-known period in Miles' life, from the servant's quarters of Sydney and Melbourne's wealthy houses to volatile Chicago, in the turbulent years after her early success. Davies draws on a never-before-published manuscript and diary extracts from Miles' year undercover as a servant, intimate correspondence with poet Banjo Paterson, and archival sources from Australia and Chicago.
About Kerrie Davies
Kerrie Davies is the author of A Wife's Heart, that created national discussion about the iconic poet Henry Lawson and his marriage. She has appeared at the Sydney and Brisbane Writers Festivals, and the National Folk festival, Canberra. A former journalist for Vogue and the Sunday Telegraph, Kerrie is Senior Lecturer at the School of the Arts & Media, UNSW Sydney, a 2024 Visiting Fellow at the State Library of New South Wales, and writes for the Conversation.
About Michelle Staff
Dr Michelle Staff is a feminist historian living on Ngunnawal/Ngambri Country in Canberra. She is the online and outreach manager for the Australian Dictionary of Biography and the 2025 Hazel Rowley Literary Fellow.