Biographers International Organization

Schedule

(all times listed are Eastern Standard Time)

Keynote: 9:30 a.m.
David Denby, “Four Books in One: On Crafting an Unusual Group Biography” (pre-recorded)
Introduced by Barbara Lehman Smith, Online Events Chair

David Denby will discuss the research and writing process behind his recent group biography, Eminent Jews: Bernstein, Brooks, Friedan, Mailer (Henry Holt & Company, 2025), which he considers to be an unusual group biography. The four subjects worked in different fields (music, comedy, feminism, and literature) and barely knew one another. What held the group together in one volume? They were all born after the First World War and matured after the Second; they all took advantage of new media like television, the long-playing record, the mass-market paperback. They were all part of Eastern European Jewish immigrant families, families whose success in America depended on certain common values—a commitment to work and education, a hatred of violence and alcoholism, a caution about sex. It was not a sensual culture. 

His four subjects—exuberant egotists all—certainly worked hard, but, consciously or not, they reversed some of those values in their public and private lives. At the same time, they reconfirmed certain Jewish cultural traits—explicitly, a desire to teach in some ways. For all their egotism, they were, in different ways, didactic, even moralistic. They created a new kind of American Jew—disinhibited, but, in one way or another, ethical actors.

Forum #1: 10:30–11:45 a.m.
Brian Jay Jones, “Writing Creatively about Creatives”
The session will be moderated by Simon Read, a former newspaper reporter who is the author of ten works of narrative non-fiction. 

What does it take to write the life of someone whose brilliance seems to defy explanation? How do biographers grapple with the seemingly ineffable spark that fuels great creators, and balance reverence with rigor when telling their stories? And when exploring archival materials, how do you recognize a moment when an idea begins to take shape—and how do you translate fragments, experiments, and contradictions into a compelling narrative of discovery and growth? And finally, what do readers truly want from a biography of a beloved artist? How much of “how the magic works” should be revealed—and how much should remain in shadow?

Lunch Break: 11:45 a.m.– 12:30 p.m.

Forum #2: 12:30–1:45 p.m.
Dr. Ashley D. Farmer, “From Fragments to Story: Biographical Writing Without a Paper Trail”
The session will be moderated by Tamara Payne, a member of the BIO Board of Directors, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning co-author of The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X, written with her father the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Les Payne.

Break: 1:45–2:00 p.m.

Forum #3: 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Susan Page, “Barbara Bush, Nancy Pelosi & Barbara Walters walk into a bar…: The Badass Women of the Silent Generation” 
The session will be moderated by Sara Fitzgerald, a member of the BIO Board of Directors who retired from a journalism career that included 15 years as an editor and new media developer at The Washington Post. She is the author of both fiction and non-fiction, including two biographies.

Over the past eight years, Susan Page has written biographies of three women she had assumed were quite different: Barbara Bush, a Republican first lady. Nancy Pelosi, a Democratic legislative leader. And Barbara Walters, a groundbreaking journalist. What she found were threads of generation and gender that connected them in remarkable and surprising ways. Looking for the surprise is the quintessential quality of a successful biography – finding things that you and your readers didn’t expect and didn’t know. What were the experiences that shaped each of these women? And how do you figure that out?

Break: 3:15–3:30 p.m.

Social Hour: 3:30–4:30 p.m.  
Participants may wind up the day with an online social hour, giving the chance to make connections with other BIO members, ask questions to session leaders or one another, or share thoughts about the day. 

Plenary Speaker

David Denby is the New York Times bestselling author of Great Books. His most recent book is the group biography, Eminent Jews: Bernstein, Friedan, Mailer (Henry Holt & Company, 2025). His other books include American Sucker and Lit Up. He was a film critic for New York magazine and The New Yorker, where he is now a staff writer. His essays have appeared in The New Republic and The Atlantic. He lives in New York City with his wife, novelist Susan Rieger.

Forum Leaders

New York Times bestselling biographer Brian Jay Jones, who has explored the life and work of Jim Henson, George Lucas, and Dr. Seuss, takes you behind the scenes of the craft of writing about creative icons, exploring how biographers can weave together research, interpretation, storytelling, and the elusive, electric presence of genius to create an equally compelling and creative biography, worthy of their subject.

An active member of Biographers International Organization since its inception in 2009, Brian has also served as its elected President (2014-2016) and Vice President (2012-2014) and was a Board member from 2009-2018. Brian lives in New Mexico where he is awaiting publication of his biography of another iconic American figure, the U.S. Capitol building (Dutton, 2026).

Dr. Ashley D. Farmer is a historian of black women’s history, intellectual history, and radical politics. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Departments of History and African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of Remaking Black Power: How Black Women Transformed an Era (UNC Press) and Queen Mother: Black Nationalism, Reparations, and the Untold Story of Audley Moore (Pantheon).  Farmer’s scholarship has appeared in numerous venues including The Black Scholar and The Journal of African American History. Her research has also been featured in several popular outlets including Harper’s Bazaar, NPR, and Teen Vogue. Her next book project is a collective biography called The Bureau’s Blacklist: The FBI’s Surveillance of Black Women from Ida B. Wells to Angela Davis.

Susan Page is the award-winning Washington Bureau chief of USA TODAY and a member of the BIO Board of Directors. She is also the New York Times best-selling author of The Matriarch: Barbara Bush and the Making of an American Dynasty (Twelve, 2019); Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power (Twelve, 2021), and The Rulebreaker: The Life and Times of Barbara Walters (Simon & Schuster, 2024). Her latest book is The Queen and Her Presidents: The Hidden Hand That Shaped History, being published by HarperCollins in April 2026.