Episode #4
The Modern Crone: Season 9: Kick Arse Crones with Lisa Clifford
Lisa Clifford grew up in Sydney. She moved to Italy when she was sixteen years old and returned to Australia after winning a scholarship to the Australian Film, Television and Radio School. After a journalism career that includes reporting for 2GB, KIIS FM and Channel 10 News, Lisa served as an associate producer of the Channel 10 Late News. Throughout her career, she continued to travel to Italy, corresponding for 2UE, the ABC’s Radio National and the Voice of America News Service. Lisa contributes opinion pieces, guides and lifestyle articles on Italy to The Australian, The Australian Financial Review, Gourmet Traveller and a range of other international magazines and newspapers. She is the author of Walking Sydney (Pan Macmillan 1998), The Promise - an Italian Romance (Pan Macmillan 2004), Death in the Mountains (Pan Macmillan), 2009 winner of the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for writing about Italians) and Naples, A Way of Love (Penguin 2013), awarded the Australian Illustrated Book of the Year. In 2013, Lisa founded The Art of Writing, a Tuscany-based international writers' retreat for emerging and established writers. Lisa Clifford lives in Florence and Sydney. In 2025, she received a NSW State Library Fellowship to research her book Poised, a memoir/biography of her Australian etiquette-icon mother, June Dally-Watkins. That said, please don’t expect her to have perfect table manners. Join us as Lisa shares: What it was like growing up with a famous mother who was a household name in Australia and her newfound appreciation of her legacy. How living between cultures formed her worldview and what ‘belonging’ means to her. How her life has been a ‘forced series of pivots’. Her current focus on how women changed Australian culture through the 50s and 60s. How the ability to pivot is a woman’s superpower. The challenge many female writers feel: they’re ‘not good enough’. The importance of ‘watering the garden of your dreams’. How serious research into a desired vision is key to manifesting it. How, in her ‘crone years’, she has returned to her true self, intentional alignment and purpose... And so much more! You can find out more about Lisa and her works here: The Art of Writing https://the-art-of-writing.com/ Books: https://www.lisacliffordwriter.com/ So grateful for The Modern Crone team - Theme music and season intro tracks: Jason de Wilde https://jasondewilde.com.au/ Cover design and photography Luana Suciu https://www.instagram.com/luanasuciu/ Luanasuciu@gmail.com Voice editing: Christopher Hales - Mask Music Studios maskmusicstudios@outlook.com Studio and Reel production: Kymberly Sng kymberlysngcm@gmail.com
