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April 2024
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FROM THE EDITOR
This tends to be the month when member news and literary happenings really ramp up, and 2024 followed the pattern. I felt like Lucy Ricardo or Ethel Mertz in the I Love Lucy episode where they work at the chocolate factory. The process of putting together this newsletter started methodically enough, but then the “conveyor belt” really sped up, and new items are now bursting from the packaging (but I didn’t eat any). At this rate, the May issue of the Insider may hit your inbox before the BIO Conference. Time will tell! Don’t let that deter you from submitting your news. Submit more news here, and we can discuss it all at the Conference!
Enjoy!
Holly
P.S.: Does anyone play pickleball? This is relevant . . . trust me . . . !
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BIO NEWS
Ramin Ganeshram and Kevin McGruder Win 2024 Frances “Frank” Rollin Fellowships
Ramin Ganeshram (left) and Kevin McGruder (right).
Ramin Ganeshram and Kevin McGruder are the winners of the 2024 Frances “Frank” Rollin Fellowship for biographical works-in-progress that make a significant contribution to our understanding of the Black experience.
Ramin Ganeshram, an award-winning journalist and historian, won for her biographical project Stirring Liberty: How George Washington’s Enslaved Chef Transformed American Cuisine and Secretly Cooked His Way to Freedom, a biography of Hercules Posey. Fortuitously after the fact, her proposed book was sold to Simon & Schuster’s 37 Ink imprint.
Kevin McGruder, an associate professor of History at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, won for his project Rudolf Fisher: Harlem’s Interpreter. Fisher’s concurrent medical and literary careers in the 1920s and 1930s made him a pivotal contributor to the storied intellectual and cultural movement known as the Harlem Renaissance.
To learn more about Ramin Ganeshram and Kevin McGruder and their respective works, please visit here. Named for Frances (“Frank”) Anne Rollin Whipper, one of America’s first recorded African American biographers, BIO’s Rollin Fellowship seeks to help remediate the disproportionate reflection of Black lives and voices in published biography and to encourage diversity in the field. BIO launched the Rollin Fellowship in 2020 and first presented an award of $2,000 to a single winner in May 2021 and again in 2022. As of May 2023, with a generous donation from Kitty Kelley, BIO increased the award to $5,000 each for two winners. The fellowship also awards the recipients a year’s membership in BIO, registration to the annual BIO Conference, and publicity through BIO’s marketing channels. This year’s Rollin Prize Committee members were Eric K. Washington (chair), Tamara Payne, and Rachel L. Swarns.
Tracy Floreani wins the 2024 Hazel Rowley Prize
The 2024 Hazel Rowley Prize honoring the best book proposal by a first-time biographer has been awarded to Tracy Floreani, who is at work on Invisible Woman: Fanny Ellison and the Staging of a Writer’s Life, a biography of the populist theatre director, aspiring writer, and philanthropy professional married to novelist Ralph Ellison.
This year’s Rowley Prize Committee was comprised of Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina (chair), Gayle Feldman, and Carl Rollyson.
The Rowley Prize has been awarded since 2014; Floreani is the 10th recipient.
Varagur and Walsh named 2024 Caro Fellowship Recipients
Krithika Varagur (left) and Keri Walsh (right).
Krithika Varagur and Keri Walsh are the winners of the 2024 Robert and Ina Caro Travel Fellowships for travel. They will receive $5,000 each for research trips to archives or important settings in their subjects’ lives. Varagur is at work on a group biography, The Singh Princesses: Three Sisters at the End of Empire, to be published by Penguin Press. Varagur will use the fellowship to make a research trip to Germany.
Keri Walsh is at work on Shakespeare and Company: The Paris Bookstore that Changed the World, a dual biography of the bookstore’s proprietors, Sylvia Beach and George Whitman, which will be published by Scribner. Walsh will use the fellowship funds to conduct research in Paris.
The 2024 Caro Travel Fellowship Committee members were Carla Kaplan (chair), Marc Leepson, and Susan Page.
Three Win 2024 Chip Bishop Fellowships
This year, there are three recipients of Chip Bishop Fellowships. Each will receive $1,000 to defray travel expenses to the Conference and free registration.
- Janice Gregory, who is working on a biography of Alyse Gregory, managing editor of The Dial, the influential literary magazine.
- Daphne Noyes, who is working on a biography of Adeline Blanchard Tyler, one of the first deaconesses of the Episcopal Church, a Civil War nurse, and the first superintendent of Boston Children’s Hospital.
- Anne Stuart, who is working on her first biography, of Abigail May Alcott Nierker, the younger sister of Louisa May, the model for Amy in Little Women, and a painter, teacher, and writer.
The Bishop Fellowship is made possible by Jamie Morris and the Captain Bob Morris Fund.
The 2024 Bishop Fellowship Committee members were Marc Leepson (chair), Nina Ellis, and Jamie Morris.
There’s Still Time to Register
This year, the BIO Conference—cosponsored by the Leon Levy Center for Biography—will take place in person at the CUNY Graduate Center in Manhattan on Thursday, May 16, and Friday, May 17, with an optional tour the morning of Saturday, May 18. For program information, go here. Registration is required through Eventbrite; you can register here. Group hotel rates are available for conference attendees; for information about those offerings and other accommodation options, please visit this page.
2024 Biography Lab Videos are Now Available
Recordings of the keynote speech and all three forums of the 2024 Biography Lab are now available for viewing. You can access them directly on YouTube by visiting this link, or you can view them in the Video Library of the Members Area of the website here.
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CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
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Miami Book Fair Emerging Writer Fellowships
The Miami Book Fair, in conjunction with Miami Dade College, is offering $50,000 stipends and 12-month residencies in Miami in the categories of Prose, Poetry, and Spanish Language. There is no application fee. Applications are due May 15. Learn more here.
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PEN/Jean Stein Oral History Grants
Applications for the PEN/Jean Stein Oral History grants will open shortly, offering two cash prizes of $15,000 each to writers working on an unpublished work-in-progress that will not be published prior to April 1, 2026, and for which oral history is “a significant component of the project and its research.” Learn more here.
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PRIZES
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Leon Levy Center Names Five New Fellows
The Leon Levy Center for Biography at the CUNY Graduate Center announced five Levy Fellows for the 2024–2025 term. Each resident fellow receives a $72,000 grant, research assistance, writing space, and full access to research facilities. The fellows are Emily Bernard, who is at work on a biography of Harlem Renaissance writer Nella Larsen, which will be published in the Yale Black Lives series; Nicholas Dawidoff, who is working on a biography of photographer and filmmaker Robert Frank, which will be published by Penguin Random House; Nicholas Kulish, who is writing a biography of Bill Gates; Stephen Phillips, who is working on a biography of Christopher Hitchens to be published by W.W. Norton & Company; and Mike Rezendes, who is working on a biography of New York reporter Jimmy Breslin, which will be published by Simon & Schuster. Learn more here.
New-York Historical Society Book Prize
Jonathan Eig won the New-York Historical Society’s 2024 Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize in American History for King: A Life (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). The award comes with a $50,000 prize and the title “American Historian Laureate.” Learn more here.
National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography
This year’s NBCC Awards have been announced. Jonny Steinberg won the Biography award for Winnie and Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage (Knopf). Learn more here.
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Guggenheim Fellowships
The Class of 2024 Guggenheim Fellows, made up of 188 individuals across 52 disciplines, has been announced. Nicholas Frankel, author of The Invention of Oscar Wilde (Reaktion Books, 2021), won the only fellowship awarded for Biography. Other biographers received fellowships in General Nonfiction: Jonathan Alter, presidential biographer, most recently of His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life (Simon & Schuster, 2020); Thomas Beller, author of J.D. Salinger: The Escape Artist (New Harvest, 2014); and Adam Shatz, author of The Rebel’s Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024). Additionally, Tiya Miles, author of All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake (Random House, 2021), won a fellowship in Intellectual & Cultural History. Learn more here.
NAACP Image Awards
Tanisha C. Ford won the 2024 NAACP Image Award in Literature for Outstanding Biography/Autobiography for Our Secret Society: Mollie Moon and the Glamour, Money, and Power Behind the Civil Rights Movement (Amistad). Learn more here.
Florida Book Awards
Two biographies won 2024 Florida Book Awards: Judith L. Pearson won the Bronze Award for General Nonfiction for her biography Crusade to Heal America: The Remarkable Life of Mary Lasker (Mayo Clinic Press). Additionally, Larry Loftis won the Gold Award for General Nonfiction for The Watchmaker’s Daughter: The True Story of World War II Heroine Corrie ten Boom (William Morrow). Learn more here.
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IN THE NEWS
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PEN America Calls off Literary Awards Ceremony
PEN America administrators canceled the PEN America Literary Awards ceremony scheduled for April 29. More than 29 authors and translators withdrew themselves from consideration for or outright declined 2024 awards, including nine of 10 finalists for the PEN/Jean Stein Award for best book. Those authors said PEN’s stance on the war in Gaza does not go far enough to support Palestinians. In March, more than 20 writers who had been invited to the PEN World Voices festival wrote an open letter in which they declined the invitation, stating, “Palestine’s poets, scholars, novelists and journalists and essayists have risked everything, including their lives and the lives of their families, to share their words with the world. Yet PEN America appears unwilling to stand with them firmly against the powers that have oppressed and dispossessed them for the last 75 years.” Read more here.
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New “It” Television Series Finds Synergy with Biography
The cover of In the Service of the Shogun, from the historian for the hit FX drama.
Shōgun, FX and Hulu’s new based-on-real-events drama series that chronicles an English sailor stranded in Japan in the 17th century, has been hailed by some critics and TV aficionados as the next Game of Thrones. While the series is based on a 1975 novel of the same name, the protagonist has a real-life counterpart: William Adams. Now, the historical researcher for the series is publishing a biography of Adams called In the Service of the Shogun. Read more here.
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THE WRITER’S LIFE
Looking for a biographical subject?
BIO member Carl Rollyson passed along word of this opportunity: “[a colleague] reached out to me with a note that her colleague had started a biography of Robert Harron but is unable to complete it and would like to donate her research material to someone else.” If you are interested, contact Emily Bandy at ebandy@ihl.state.ms.us.
Want to Be a Conference Correspondent?
Correspondents are needed to recap panels they attend at the BIO Conference. These brief (600 words or less) summaries help share key points and quotes with BIO members who either cannot attend the conference or cannot attend a panel happening simultaneously with another. The summaries will be published in summer editions of The Biographer’s Craft and placed on the BIO website. If you are interested, please reply directly to this email for details or click here.
Remembering Ned Comstock
A future edition of The Biographer’s Craft will pay tribute to Edward Sykes “Ned” Comstock, the recipient of BIO’s first Biblio Award and USC’s longtime cinema librarian and archivist, who died in late March. If Ned helped you with your research and you would like to share your story for the memorial piece, please reply directly to this email or click here.
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SOLD TO PUBLISHERS
All American (Ronald Reagan)
by Beverly Gage
sold to Simon & Schuster
by Andrew Wylie at The Wylie Agency
Revolutionary Women (Eliza Hamilton, Theodosia Prevost Burr, Martha Washington, Peggy Shippen Arnold, and more)
by Daphne Palmer Geanacopoulos
sold to Hanover Square Press
by Iris Blasi at Arc Literary Management
Alexandria on Edge: Civil War, Reconstruction, and Remembrance on the Banks of the Potomac
by Paula Tarnapol Whitacre
sold to Georgetown University Press
More titles here.
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Editor’s note: This section will introduce you to new members of BIO and their work.
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ROLL CALL
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MEMBER NEWS AND NOTES
See what these members have been up to—releasing new titles, giving interviews, writing articles—by going here. And be sure to send us your news!
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Kate Buford
Stephen Dando-Collins
Vincent DiGirolamo
Jonathan Eig
John A. Farrell
Danny Fingeroth
Sara Fitzgerald
Nona Footz
Tanisha C. Ford
Ramin Ganeshram
Beverly Gage
Daphne Palmer Geanacopoulos
Will Hermes
Arthur Hoyle
Doris Kearns Goodwin
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Kitty Kelley
Louise W. Knight
Andrew Lownie
Kevin McGruder
Lisa Napoli
Susan Page
Judith L. Pearson
Bridget Quinn
Mike Rezendes
Carl Rollyson
Jennifer Skoog
Jared Stearns
Eric K. Washington
Paula Tarnapol Whitacre
Susan Wilson
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IN STORES NOW
Stephen Dando-Collins, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Susan Page, Bridget Quinn, Carl Rollyson, and Jared Stearns are the BIO members who have new biographies out. To see the full list of April releases, go here.
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PAPERBACK RELEASES
To see the full list of paperbacks being released in April, click here.
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OBITUARIES
Neeli Cherkovski, biographer of Charles Bukowski and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, died on March 19. He was 78.
Edward Sykes “Ned” Comstock, the longtime librarian of Cinematic Arts at USC and the first recipient of BIO’s Biblio Award, died on March 28. He was 77.
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FEELING STUCK?
BIO Offers Coaching
Whatever state your biography’s in—vague idea, proposal, well underway—BIO’s experienced biographers can help. BIO offers a one-hour coaching session via phone or email for the member discounted rate of $60. (Coaches may charge more for subsequent hours.) Learn more about the program here.
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ARE YOU A STUDENT?
Discounted BIO Membership Rate
Are you a student, or do you know one who is interested in biography? BIO now has a special student membership rate. Visit the BIO website to find out more.
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KEEP YOUR INFO CURRENT
Making a move or just changed your email? We ask BIO members to keep their contact information up to date, so we and other members know where to find you. Update your information in the Member Area of the BIO website.
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MEMBERSHIP UP FOR RENEWAL?
Please respond promptly to your membership renewal notice. As a nonprofit organization, BIO depends on members’ dues to fund our annual conference, the publication of this newsletter, and the other work we do to support biographers around the world.
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BIO BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Steve Paul, President
Sarah S. Kilborne, Vice President
Marc Leepson, Treasurer
Kathleen Stone, Secretary
Michael Gately, ex officio
Kai Bird
Heather Clark
Natalie Dykstra
Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina
Carla Kaplan
Kitty Kelley
Susan Page
Tamara Payne
Ray Anthony Shepard
Barbara Lehman Smith
Kathleen C. Stone
Eric K. Washington
Sonja D. Williams
ADVISORY COUNCIL
Debby Applegate, Chair • Taylor Branch • A’Lelia Bundles • Robert Caro • Ron Chernow • Tim Duggan • John A. Farrell • Caroline Fraser • Irwin Gellman • Michael Holroyd • Peniel Joseph • Hermione Lee • David Levering Lewis • Andrew Lownie • Megan Marshall • John Matteson • Jon Meacham • Candice Millard • James McGrath Morris • Andrew Morton • Arnold Rampersad • Hans Renders • Stacy Schiff • Rachel Swarns • Gayfryd Steinberg • T. J. Stiles • Will Swift • William Taubman • Claire Tomalin
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THE BIOGRAPHER'S CRAFT
Editor
Jared Stearns
Associate Editor
Melanie R. Meadors
Consulting Editor
James McGrath Morris
Copy Editor
Margaret Moore Booker
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