Biographers International Organization

The following list of biographies appearing between September 2014 and February 2015 was assembled using Edelweiss, a web-based interactive publisher catalog system widely used in the book industry. If we missed a title, please let us know at editortbc@biographersinternational.org September Life in the Writings of Storm Jameson: A Biography by Elizabeth Maslen (Northwestern University Press) American Gandhi: A. J. Muste and the History of Radicalism in the Twentieth Century by Leilah Danielson (University of Pennsylvania… Read More »

It’s rare when biographies and biographers make the front page of a national magazine — in this case it’s the September 5, 2014 issue of Newsweek. But don’t rush to celebrate just yet.  In a lengthy piece for the magazine, reporter David Cay Johnson  debunks the work of celebrity biographer C. David Heymann — author of juicy tell-alls on Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, and Liz Taylor, to name a few — finding that much of… Read More »

To reserve your place at the Robert Gottlieb Celebration from 6:00-8:00 PM, Wednesday, December 3, 2014, at the New York Society Library, 53 East 79th Street, New York, NY 10075, purchase a ticket by clicking on the button below. Select number of tickets 1 ticket $45.00 USD2 tickets $90.00 USD… Read More »

More than four decades ago, while working as a freelance journalist in Malawi, Philip Short received a letter from Penguin: Would he be interested in writing a biography of Malawian president Hastings Banda, for the publisher’s series Political Giants of the 20th Century? Short readily agreed, adding now, “I suspect they had no idea that I was then 23 years old!” Since that auspicious start, Short has a made his mark writing biographies of world… Read More »

By Steve Weinberg We biographers covet awards for our books, as do novelists and poets and essayists and journalists from all media. After all, writers tend to receive little recognition and less cash. My advice is not exactly to forget about awards, but something similar—relax, because most of us will never win and many of the “best” biographies, however that is measured, will not receive the prize recognition they deserve. Michael Burgan asked me to… Read More »

Linda Leavell’s Holding on Upside Down: The Life and Work of Marianne Moore (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) won the Plutarch Award for the best biography of 2013. The winner and the three finalists were revealed at a ceremony held at the closing of the fifth annual Compleat Biographer conference at UMass Boston on May 17.   “I’m truly humbled by this award, and I’m also humbled by my company here, the fellow nominees,” Leavell said… Read More »

More than 200 biographers, including ones from Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, attended the fifth annual Compleat Biographer Conference, held May 17 at the University of Massachusetts Boston. As at past conferences, one of the day’s highlights was the presentation of the BIO Award at the afternoon luncheon, which this year went to Stacy Schiff, author of Saint-Exupéry: A Life,A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of … Read More »

BIO members selected Brian Jay Jones to serve as president and Cathy Curtis as vice president in an election that concluded on April 30. Jones has been a BIO board member since 2009 and served as BIO’s secretary and vice president. He is the author of Jim Henson: The Biography and Washington Irving: An American Original. Curtis, a former Los Angeles Times staff writer, has been a board member since 2013 and served as… Read More »