Biographers International Organization

On June 1, new BIO President Will Swift and Vice President Deirdre David began their two-year terms. Joining them as officers are Marc Leepson, who is returning as treasurer, and Dean King as secretary. Board members reelected or elected to a first term are: Kate Buford Cathy Curtis Annette Dunlap* John A. Farrell* Gayle Feldman Beverly Gray Dean King* Heath Lee* Hans Renders (* denotes a newly elected member) Returning board members are: Oline Eaton… Read More »

Rosemary Sullivan won the 2016 Plutarch Award for Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva. Read more about the Plutarch, this year’s semi-finalists, and the winners of special awards for excellence here, and look for more on Sullivan and her honor in the July issue of The Biographer’s Craft.      … Read More »

On June 1, new BIO President Will Swift and Vice President Deirdre David began their two-year terms. Joining them as officers are Marc Leepson, who is returning as treasurer, and Dean King as secretary. You can read more about the current and outgoing board members here.… Read More »

In collaboration with the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing at Oxford, housed at Wolfson College and directed by Professor Dame Hermione Lee, Biography International Organization (BIO) is hosting Biography Beyond Borders, a colloquium on American and European biography. The colloquium is 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 5. Lee will deliver the afternoon’s keynote address, and distinguished American biographer Carla Kaplan will give  lecture the previous evening at the Centre for Life-Writing Research… Read More »

In a preview of the BIO Conference panel “Three Ways of Looking at a Subject: Richard Nixon,” moderator John A. Farrell explores the presidential subject with two of the panelists. Lincoln, we know. The Roosevelts, we get. Of Kennedy, we probably know too much. But the roster of American presidents still presents a few white whales for biographers to chase—chief executives whose lives don’t yield characterization easily. Jefferson has been called a sphinx. Reagan… Read More »

Robert Marshall is the winner of BIO’s Hazel Rowley Prize for 2016. The prize, awarded every two years, goes to the best proposal from a first-time biographer. Marshall is working on a biography of 1970s New Age guru Carlos Castenada, a project we featured in the March 2015 issue of TBC (you can read the article here). He will receive his prize at the BIO Conference luncheon on June 4 in Richmond, Virginia. The… Read More »

The following are election statements and biographies submitted by candidates for BIO’s President, Vice President, and the BIO Board of Directors. In 2016, there are nine board seats up for election, each with a two year term running from 2016 to 2018. The terms for President and Vice President are also for two years, from 2016 to 2018. For President Will Swift Will Swift is a founding board member of BIO and chairs its Awards Committee. He… Read More »

The following are election statements and biographies submitted by candidates for BIO’s President, Vice President, and the BIO Board of Directors. In 2016, there are nine board seats up for election, each with a two year term running from 2016 to 2018. The terms for President and Vice President are also for two years, from 2016 to 2018. For President Will Swift Will Swift is a founding board member of BIO and chairs its Awards Committee. He… Read More »