Biographers International Organization

The 2024 BIO Conference is now underway at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York. You can view the digital conference program here. The following events and sessions will be live-streamed for virtual attendees: Thursday, May 16, 2024 4:00 p.m.–4:45 p.m.: Member Readings: BIO members read excerpts from their recent biographies. 4:45 p.m.–5:30 p.m.: Presentation Robert and Ina Caro Research/Travel Fellowships, the Chip Bishop Fellowship, the Francis “Frank” Rollin Fellowships, and the Hazel Rowley… Read More »

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… Read More »

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.          … Read More »

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 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… Read More »

A distinguished panel of judges from the Biographers International Organization (BIO) is proud to announce the five books that have been short-listed for the 2024 Plutarch Award, the only international literary award for biography judged exclusively by biographers. These five biographies uphold the high standard set by earlier Plutarch winners for the quality of research, the literary merit of the writing, and the originality and significance of the project. You will find this year’s five… Read More »

Kai Bird has been awarded the 2024 BIO Award, an honor bestowed annually by the Biographers International Organization, to a distinguished colleague who has made significant contributions to the art and craft of biography. Bird is the award-winning author of  seven books, five of which have been biographies. Since 2017, as Executive Director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York, he has worked tirelessly to advance the… Read More »

Kitty Kelley and Debby Applegate Invite You to Celebrate Kai Bird & Oppenheimer Saturday, March 2, 2024 4-7pm At the Home of Debby Applegate and Bruce Tulgan Hamden, CT 06517 A 10-minute taxi/Uber ride from New Haven’s Union Station  (from Manhattan, take Metro-North to Union Station) Street parking available Tickets: $125/one ticket or $200/two tickets Join us, one week before the Oscars, for an unforgettable benefit evening in honor of biographer and BIO board member… Read More »

Registration for the 2024 BIO Conference is now open. Co-sponsored with the Leon Levy Center for Biography, the two-day event will take place both in person and online May 16-17, 2024, at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Please note: unlike previous years, the conference will take place on a Thursday and Friday; in addition, one of several optional tours will be offered on Saturday morning, May 18. Attending in… Read More »