Mining Modjeska’s archive with Dr Bernadette Brennan

Helen Garner and Drusilla Modjeska. Image: Drusilla Modjeska.

Join Dr Bernadette Brennan as she presents a lecture on her 2024 National Library Fellowship research into the archives of award-winning author and editor Drusilla Modjeska.

Dr Brennan is a 2024 National Library of Australia Fellow in Australian Literature, supported by the Ray Mathew and Eva Kollsman Trust.

Drusilla Modjeska is the award-winning author and editor of 14 books and scores of essays and reviews. She is perhaps best known for her boundary-crossing works of biography and memoir which celebrate the legacies of women writers and artists, and wrestle with questions about love, writing and independence.

Modjeska’s embargoed archive, held by the National Library, tells a rich, complex and, at times, heart-breaking story about her life and work. Bernadette Brennan shares a little of what she has discovered in the archive and explores some perennial questions about ethics in biographical research and writing.

Entry is free to this event but bookings are essential.

The talk will be available to view live online via the Library’s Facebook and YouTube pages. You do not need to book a ticket to watch the event online.

About Dr Bernadette Brennan

Dr Bernadette Brennan is a biographer, critic and researcher of contemporary Australian writing. She is the author of a number of publications, including a monograph on Brian Castro and two edited collections: Just Words?: Australian Authors Writing for Justice (UQP 2008), and Ethical Investigations: Essays on Australian Literature and Poetics (Vagabond 2008). In 2017 she published her award-winning literary biography A Writing Life: Helen Garner and Her Work (Text).

Her most recent book, Leaping Into Waterfalls: The Enigmatic Gillian Mears (A&U 2021), was shortlisted for the 2022 NSW Premier’s Douglas Stewart award and won the Magarey Medal for Biography, the National Biography Award and the Age Book of the Year (non-fiction).

About National Library of Australia Fellowships

The National Library of Australia Fellowships program offers researchers an opportunity to undertake a 12-week residency at the Library.

This program is supported by generous donors and bequests.

The details

What: Mining Modjeska’s archive with Dr Bernadette Brennan
When: Saturday 20 June 2024 from 5:30 pm to 6:30 pm
Where: National Library of Australia
Cost: Free. Tickets available from the National Library of Australia.