Society & Culture

Richard Fidler presents the 2018 Seymour Biography Lecture Telling and Writing the Story, outlining some of the tensions that come into play when bringing someone’s life story to a listening audience and comparing it to the freedoms and constraints involved in writing biography for a reader. Richard Fidler hosts Conversations on ABC Radio, an hour-long interview show. His guests have included astronauts, authors and scientists, but the program often features remarkable people unknown to the wider world. More recently he's written several historical books, including Ghost Empire and Saga Land (co-written with Kari Gislason), containing short biographies of historical figures from Byzantium and medieval Iceland. The Seymour Biography Lecture is supported by Dr John and Mrs Heather Seymour AO.