Biographers International Organization

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 »

In the first of several previews of panels offered at the Seventh Annual BIO Conference, moderator James Atlas takes a look at some of his panelists’ views on their topic, “Choosing a Subject.”   Maybe another way to look at this question is to ask: Do biographers actually choose their subjects at all? Do they have agency over the process of determining how they will spend the next five or ten or—in the famous case… Read More »

By Deirdre David Whether strolling down St. Marks Place, wrestling with the many lives of Orson Welles, or wondering where Virginia Woolf got her clothes, the biographer must inevitably confront the vexing question of perspective: Where do you stand in relation to your subject, whether it’s a street, a cinematic genius, a brilliant novelist, or indeed yourself? At the Leon Levy Biography Conference, held on March 8 and organized around the theme of “Point… Read More »

While publishing insiders may say that the overall selection of new biographies coming out this spring and summer is not as impressive as last year’s stellar crop, the range of subjects—some tried and true, some getting their first major due—should satisfy the most discriminating readers. Here are some books most likely to receive considerable attention in the coming months. You can see a longer list of upcoming releases here.  A literary biography is one… Read More »