BIO is the first-ever international organization to represent the everyday interests of practicing biographers: those who’ve already published the stories of real lives, and those working on biographies – in every medium, from print to film.

Last year BIO held its first Compleat Biographer Conference in Boston. For our second annual conference we chose Washington D.C. as our venue. Held at the National Press Club on May 21, it offered some sixteen panels, on topics ranging from What You Need to Know About E-Books, to Writing for Young Adults and How Book Reviewers Address Biography. Once again we also held Speed Dating panels where members could pitch their latest proposals to literary agents. The centerpiece of the one-day conference, however, was the presentation of our BIO Award for his contributions to the art and craft of biography to Robert Caro, one of our greatest living biographers. Robert gave a most moving and memorable keynote address. And once again we had an opportunity to meet each other – in person. With a previous day of workshops offered at the Library of Congress and National Archives, and an evening in Georgetown at the home of board member Kitty Kelley, we were truly spoiled by our conference planning and site committees!

This year we will hold our annual conference in Los Angeles, themed around the interrelationship of print/written biography and film/television/multi-media life story telling, in both documentary and dramatized forms. We hope to have some terrific panels; moreover by interesting Hollywood in us, and introducing our members to the image-led field of storytelling, we aim to get a fresh buzz going between the genres. So watch for more on this – and book early! Don’t miss out!

In the meantime we are expanding our Biography Groups across the country, adding more affiliate organizations across the world, and pursuing new benefits and opportunities for our members. In a welcome note at our conference this year, I wrote of “a veritable publishing revolution” that, thanks to new technologies, “is unfolding before our eyes – one that will affect us all, for better or for worse. By confronting these challenges together, rather than singly, we can ensure the survival of biography as seriously researched, articulately composed, and well-produced work chronicling the lives of real individuals: a craft that has been in existence since Greek and Roman times. This is our commitment, then, each and every one of us: to make a unique contribution to human knowledge and understanding through our work.”

Welcome, then, to another year of BIO, as it grows into a dynamic, nurturing and expanding organization for biographers – an organization where members are proud to be making a real, grass-roots difference to the survival of their craft!

Yours,

Nigel Hamilton

President

BIO logo designed by Stephanie Morris