March 21st, 2025
In this special episode, BIO’s former president and one of the organization’s founders, talks about the history of BIO and its influence. In 2019 McGrath Morris received the BIO Award, annually presented to a writer who has made a major contribution to the advancement of the art and craft of biography. His award-winning books have included
Tony Hillerman: A Life;
The Ambulance Drivers: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and A Friendship Made and Lost in Wa…
Read More »
Published under:
Tags: authors, BIO, biographers, biography, James McGrath Morris, Jenny Skoog, podcast
March 14th, 2025
This award-winning author of biographers for young readers talks about his writing career and his long-term service as a founding BIO board member. His most recent book,
A Long Time Coming: A Lyrical Biography of Race in America From Ona Judge to Barack Obama, was published by Calkins Creek in August 2023. Shepard initiated and organized BIO’s exciting forthcoming regional conference,
Telling the Stories of Black Lives through Biography. Scheduled for March 21-22, 2025,…
Read More »
Published under:
Tags: A Long Time Coming, biography, Black biography, Jenny Skoog, podcast, Ray Anthony Shepard
November 1st, 2024
Author Susan Blumberg-Kason talks about her latest book,
Bernardine’s Shanghai Salon: The Story of the Doyenne of Old China, published by Post Hill Press in November 2023. Blumberg-Kason has also authored
Good Chinese Wife: A Love Affair with China Gone Wrong and she co-edited the book
Hong Kong Noir. Blumberg-Kason is a regular contributor to the
Asian Review of Books and
World Literature Today, and her work has appeared in the
Los Angeles …
Read More »
Published under:
Tags: bernardine's shanghai salon, Jenny Skoog, susan blumberg-kason
October 4th, 2024
This week we interview Katie Gee Salisbury, author of
Not Your China Doll: The Wild and Shimmering Life of Anna May Wong, a new biography of the first Asian American movie star. This biography was published by Dutton in March 2024. Gee Salisbury’s work has appeared in
the New York Times,
Vanity Fair,
The Believer, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, and elsewhere. She was a finalist for the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship…
Read More »
Published under:
Tags: anna may wong, Jenny Skoog, katie gee salisbury, not your china doll
September 6th, 2024
This week we interview City University of New York (CUNY) professor and author Rachel Kousser. Her latest book,
Alexander at the End of the World: The Forgotten Final Years of Alexander the Great, was published in July 2024 by Mariner Books. Kousser heads the Classics Department in CUNY’s Graduate Center and serves as a professor of ancient art and archaeology at Brooklyn College. One of her previous books,
The Afterlives of Greek Sculpture: Interaction, Transformation, …
Read More »
Published under:
Tags: Alexander at the End of the World, Jenny Skoog, Rachel Kousser
June 21st, 2024
This week we interview Amrita Chakrabarti Myers, an award-winning author and the Ruth N. Halls Associate Professor of history and gender studies at Indiana University in Bloomington. Her latest book,
The Vice President’s Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn, was published by the University of North Carolina Press in October 2023. Myers also is the author of
Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston. Amrita Chakrabarti…
Read More »
Published under:
Tags: Amrita Chakrabarti Myers, jennifer skoog, julia chinn, the vice president's black wife
June 14th, 2024
This week we interview poet, novelist, and biographer Brad Gooch. His latest book,
Radiant: The Life and Line of Keith Haring, was published by Harper/HarperCollins in March 2024.
Gooch’s previous ten books include
Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor—a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, a
New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and a
New York Times bestseller—and
City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O’Hara. Brad Gooch is the recipient…
Read More »
Published under:
Tags: brad gooch, jennifer skoog, keith haring, radiant
May 3rd, 2024
This week we interview Scott Shane, author of
Flee North: A Forgotten Hero and the Fight for Freedom in Slavery’s Borderland. Published by Celadon Press in September 2023, Shane has written a riveting account of the life of Thomas Smallwood–the formerly enslaved man credited with naming the Underground Railroad. Shane is a veteran reporter for
The Baltimore Sun and
The New York Times, where he was twice a member of teams that won…
Read More »
Published under:
Tags: flee north, jennifer skoog, scott shane, Thomas Smallwood
