Biographers International Organization

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 »

The Program and Site Committees have begun their work on putting together the 2014 Compleat Biographer Conference that will be held in Boston on May 16-18. Returning to the campus of the University of Massachusetts Boston will be special, said James McGrath Morris, BIO President. “This will mark our fifth conference and the fifth anniversary of the formal establishment of Biographers International Organization. All of which took place on the campus.” As with past conferences,… Read More »

Reza Aslan seems to have found the perfect formula for rocketing a biography to the top of the New York Times Best Seller list: Take a well-known subject, present a view of him not everyone will agree with, then have Fox News interview you, focusing almost exclusively on your Muslim beliefs and why a Muslim would write about Jesus Christ. Most likely, that’s not a recipe for success that Aslan or anyone else will be… Read More »

The fall season of 2013 (August through February) has the most impressive lineup of biographies in years. Sucking up a lot of publicity oxygen will be Wilson by A. Scott Berg, the author of Max Perkins: Editor of Genius and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Charles Lindberg, being published by Putnam in September. Also in the same month, Ballantine will bring out Jim Henson: The Biography by Brian Jay Jones, vice president of BIO. Salinger by… Read More »

By Betsy Connor Bowen You’ve written a book, it’s getting published. You’re fired up. Everything’s coming up roses. You’ve earned your chops. Not so fast. It’s a new world for book publishing, and it’s often the writer who hires the publicist, not the publisher. Whereas over time a publisher would build up a storehouse of knowledge about the professionalism and integrity of various publicists, face it: you know nothing. Watch out. Shop around. It takes… Read More »