Miles Franklin’s name is inseparable from Australian literature. She’s a late 1800s bush girl who told a bold story of marriage rejection (My Brilliant Career) that went global. And it continues to captivate audiences today (see: the new Netflix adaptation by the same name).

Everyone read the book as semi-autobiographical, with its protagonist, Sybylla, standing in for a young, flirty Miles. But how much more is there to Miles Franklin’s story beyond this juicy novel?

On this first part of her story, Alecia and Leigh explore the temptations Miles Franklin faced as a writer and a woman, and the many other lives she lived beyond Sybylla’s.

SOURCES

Roe, Jill. Her brilliant career: the life of Stella Miles Franklin. Harvard University Press, 2009

Barnard, Marjorie. Miles Franklin, Hill of Content, 1967

Roe, Jill. Miles Franklin: A Short Biography, 2018

Lapierre, Alexandre. The Very Secretive and Passionate Stella Miles Franklin, Allen & Unwin, 2026

Franklin, Miles. My brilliant career. ReadHowYouWant. com, 1986

Sheridan, Susan. "Louisa Lawson, Miles Franklin and Feminist Writing, 1888–1901." Australian Feminist Studies 3.7-8 (1988): 29-47

Franklin, Miles. Childhood at Brindabella: my first ten years. Ett Imprint, 2018

Knowles, Sandra. "The not quite real Miles Franklin: Diaries as performance." Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature 4 (2005): 185-200

Franks, Rachel. "Miles Franklin." State Library of New South Wales, 2022

Knowles, Sandra. The performances of a psychic privacy: waiting for the real Miles Franklin. Diss. UNSW Sydney, 2007

Davies, Kerrie. Miles Franklin Undercover, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2025

Hosted by Alecia Simmonds and Leigh Boucher
Supervising Producer: Hannah Reich
Producer: Hannah Jose
Video producer: Christian Harimanow
Executive Producers: Clare Rawlinson and Eric George
Head of ABC Audio on Demand: Jessica Radburn
Theme: Martin Peralta
Artwork: Gabriel Virata-Alves

Miles Franklin: The flirty bush girl behind My Brilliant Career (part 1)

The Dead Can't Sue

Miles Franklin: The flirty bush girl behind My Brilliant Career (part 1)