Welcome! Here’s where you’ll find fascinating discussions with biographers from around the country and the world.
If you are a member of BIO and would like to talk about your recently released biography, please contact Sonja Williams here.
Podcast #271 – Sam Tanenhaus
Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America, published by Random House in June 2025, is the latest book by this best-selling and award-winning author of books on American politics and the media. Tanenhaus is the former editor-in-chief of The New York Times Book Review, and he has lectured at Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, and Cornell as well as at the George W. Bush White House and the Clinton, Kennedy, and Johnson Presidential libraries. His… Read More »
Podcast #270 – April F. Masten
Diamond and Juba: The Raucous World of 19th-Century Challenge Dancing is this author’s dual biography of Irish American John Diamond and African American William Henry Lane (nicknamed Juba). Published by the University of Illinois Press in December 2025, this biography explores the lives of these two men who were internationally famous in the 1800s as rival champions in the art and sport of challenge dancing. An American history professor at the State University of New… Read More »
Share this Podcast
Podcast #269 – Richard Kopley
Edgar Allan Poe: A Life is the latest book by this distinguished Penn State DuBois professor emeritus and author. Published in March 2025 by the University of Virginia Press, it won the Patrick F. Quinn Award for outstanding monograph, offered by the Poe Society, and was nominated for a 2025 Edgar Award offered by the Mystery Writers of America. Kopley also wrote The Thread of the Scarlett Letter: A Study in Hawthorne’s Transformation; Edgar … Read More »
Share this Podcast
Podcast #268 – Susannah Cahalan
The Acid Queen: The Psychedelic Life and Time and Counterculture Rebellion of Rosemary Woodruff Leary is the latest book by this New York Times bestselling author, journalist, and public speaker. It was published by Viking in April 2025. Cahalan’s first book, Brain on Fire, sold over a million copies, was translated into more than twenty languages, and was made into a Netflix movie. Her second book, The Great Pretender, was named a best … Read More »
Share this Podcast
Podcast #267 – T.J. Stiles, Part II
This celebrated author received the Biographers International Organization’s 2026 BIO Award—an annual and prestigious recognition of individuals who have made significant contributions to the art and craft of biography. Stiles’ Custer’s Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for History, the Spur Award for Best Western Biography, and the William H. Seward Award for Excellence in Civil War Biography. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize… Read More »
Share this Podcast
Podcast #266 – T.J. Stiles, Part I
This celebrated author received the Biographers International Organization’s 2026 BIO Award – an annual and prestigious recognition of individuals who have made significant contributions to the art and craft of biography. Stiles’ Custer’s Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for History, the Spur Award for Best Western Biography, and the William H. Seward Award for Excellence in Civil War Biography. It was a finalist for the… Read More »
Share this Podcast
Podcast #265 – Victoria Johnson
Glorious Country: How the Artist Frederic Church Brought the World to America and America to the World is the latest book by this author and professor of urban policy and planning at Hunter College in New York City. Johnson’s biography of Church, a highly regarded 19th-century painter and landscape artist, was published by Scribner in May 2026. Johnson also authored American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic,… Read More »
Share this Podcast
Podcast #264 – Andy Beta
Andy Beta is an award-winning arts and music writer. His newest book, Cosmic Music: The Life, Art, and Transcendence of Alice Coltrane, was published in March by Da Capo. His writing on rock, jazz, experimental, and electronic music has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Texas Monthly, NPR, We Jazz magazine, and many more.… Read More »
Share this Podcast
Podcast #263 – Steven C. Smith
Hitchcock & Herrmann: The Friendship & Film Scores That Changed Cinema was written by award-winning author Steven C. Smith. He is a four-time Emmy-nominated documentary producer of over 200 documentaries about film and music. Smith has collaborated with filmmakers Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, Stephen Sondheim, John Williams, Julie Andrews, and Sidney Poitier. His biographies of composers Bernard Herrmann and Max Steiner each received the ASCAP Foundation Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Award, and he has… Read More »
Share this Podcast
Podcast #262 – Steven C. Bowie
Concerto for Cootie: The Life and Times of Cootie Williams, published by the University of Mississippi Press in October 2025, is this author’s exploration of the legendary trumpeter and longtime member of the Duke Ellington big band. A curator and host of the Duke Ellington-themed podcast Ellington Reflections, Bowie also has presented papers on Williams and Kenny Burrell for conferences held by the Duke Ellington Society of Sweden, and his articles have appeared… Read More »
Share this Podcast
Share this Podcast