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

An episode of [The Dead Can't Sue](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6781075099), 17 Aug 2026, 41 min.

Audio: https://mediacore-live-production.akamaized.net/audio/02/nj/Z/5i.mp3

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

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