Biographers International Organization

Stacy Schiff is the winner of the fifth annual BIO Award. BIO bestows this honor on a colleague who has made a major contribution to the advancement of the art and craft of biography. The award has previously been given to Jean Strouse, Robert Caro, Arnold Rampersad, and Ron Chernow. Schiff will receive the honor during the 2014 Compleat Biographer Conference on May 17 at the University of Massachusetts Boston, where she will deliver the… Read More »

By Will Swift How did a liberal Massachusetts Democrat come to write a book on the Nixon marriage, and how in the world could he sell that book through social media? As a psychotherapist who likes healing historical reputations, I wondered when I started my new book Pat and Dick: The Nixons, an Intimate Portrait of a Marriage if the Nixons’ partnership was as dreadful as commonly portrayed or whether its image was tarnished because… Read More »

The following Master Classes will be offered Sunday morning May 18th at the University of Massachusetts Boston during the Compleat Biographer annual conference. Promoting Your Biography: Hiring a Publicist or Going it Alone Carl Rollyson, instructor A do-it-yourself workshop conducted by an experienced biographer, for all of us who can’t afford to pay for others to promote our work. We will explore the usefulness of Facebook, Twitter, blogs, other social media, and other sources… Read More »

Registration for the fifth annual Compleat Biographer conference opens this month. All BIO members will be notified by email when the registration site is open for business. Active BIO members will also receive information on using their member’s discount as well as how to obtain the early-bird registration rate. The 2014 conference will be held May 16 to 18 at the University of Massachusetts Boston, the site of the first conference and the founding of… Read More »

By Barbara Burkhardt When J. Michael Lennon was pondering where and how to begin his recently published biography, Norman Mailer: A Double Life, he found his solution while taking a morning walk with his wife Donna Pedro Lennon. “We walk two miles every morning,” he said, “and answers, ideas, new perceptions came unbidden about halfway through our little stroll.”      The plan that came to him that morning was to create an opening scene in… Read More »

Celebrating its fifth year, the BIO Compleat Biographer Conference will be held May 16-18 at the University of Massachusetts Boston campus, the site of the first conference in 2010. Since then, the conference has grown into the premier gathering for biographers eager to learn about research and interviewing techniques, bone up on key aspects of the writer’s craft, obtain inside advice about publishing, and discover new marketing strategies. The 2014 conference promises to continue the… Read More »

by Carol Sklenicka   When I met research consultant David Smith, winner of the 2013 Biblio Award, at the BIO reception at the New York Society Library in May, I mentioned that my current biography subject, novelist Alice Adams, frequented the jazz clubs on 52nd Street during and after World War II. Since I live in California, I wondered aloud to Smith how I might get a feel for that era and learn more about… Read More »

Studying the craft of biography and the biographers who have shaped it, writing biographies, editing and publishing the works of other biographers: In a career that has spanned almost 40 years, James Atlas has done it all, along with working as an editor for the New York Times and a writer for many other major periodicals. Now, Atlas is making news in the world of biography again, serving as the editor for Amazon’s new Icons… Read More »