Biographers International Organization

After receiving the 2021 BIO Award from Pamela Newkirk, David Levering Lewis spoke on “Black Biography Matters: A Prophet and A President.” The prophet was W. E. B. Du Bois, the subject of Levering’s two-volume, Pulitzer Prize-winning biography. The president was Barack Obama. Lewis started his talk by giving a mini-bio of an unnamed figure: A biracial American who did not face the extreme discrimination other Blacks did, thanks in part to having one white… Read More »

A. N. Wilson’s The Mystery of Charles Dickens (HarperCollins) has won the 2021 Plutarch Award for the best biography of 2020. Wilson is a prolific writer, whose previous books include biographies of Charles Darwin, Prince Albert, C. S. Lewis, and Queen Elizabeth II, among many others. He is also a prize-winning novelist. Named after the famous Greek writer, BIO awards the Plutarch to the best biography of the year, chosen by a committee of five… Read More »

Gabriella Marie Kelly-Davies, Paula Broussard, Trina Young, and Helen Bain are the winners of this year’s Chip Bishop Fellowships. Each will have the fee waived for the upcoming BIO Conference, held online May 14-16. Kelly-Davies is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Sydney. Broussard is a freelance writer from Los Angeles. Young, from Maryland, writes about popular music. Bain is a Ph.D. candidate at King’s College, London. The Chip Bishop Fellowship was established by… Read More »

Rachel L. Swarns is the winner of the 2021 Frances “Frank” Rollin Fellowship for her proposal of an as yet untitled, multigenerational biography of an enslaved Black family torn apart by the 1838 slave sale that saved Georgetown University from financial ruin. The committee was impressed by Swarns’s lucid, engaging narrative as she highlighted slavery’s devastating impact on a family fatefully separated when “the nation’s most prominent Jesuit priests sold 272 enslaved men, women and… Read More »

Honoring the late Chip Bishop, a former BIO Board member, this fellowship for biographers-in-need covers the annual conference fee. For 2021 only, there will be 10 Chip Bishop Fellowships offered. Students and other aspiring biographers in financial need are encouraged to apply. (If a winner has already paid for the conference, the fee will be refunded.) To apply, please respond to the four questions listed under How to Apply. The deadline is May 1, … Read More »

Humera Afridi and Iris Jamahl Dunkle are the 2021 winners of BIO’s Robert and Ina Caro Research/Travel Fellowship. Afridi, a New York-based writer of Pakistani origin, is working on The Book of Secrets: The Extraordinary Life of Noor Inayat Khan, a biography of a World War II heroine, mystic, poet, author, and musician. Khan was an Indian American woman who posthumously became a renowned and decorated war hero for her role in guerrilla tactics… Read More »

Biographies of Malcolm X, Jimmy Carter, and Charles Dickens are in the running for the 2021 Plutarch Award, which will go to the best biography of 2020, as chosen by  a distinguished panel of BIO members. The winner will be announced on May 16 during the 11th BIO Conference. You can see the five finalists as well as the other five books that made the longlist for the award, here.… Read More »