Welcome! Here’s where you’ll find fascinating discussions with biographers from around the country and the world.
If you are a member of BIO and would like to talk about your recently released biography, please contact Sonja Williams here.
Podcast #204 – Cheryl Janifer LaRoche
This award-winning archaeologist, author and scholar talks about her latest book, Apostle of Liberation: AME Bishop Paul Quinn and the Underground Railroad. Published by Rowman and Littlefield this month, this biography explores the life of a larger-than-life leader in the African Methodist Episcopal Church – a man who actively supported the education of enslaved Black Americans and their freedom struggles during and after slavery. LaRoche also authored Free Black Communities and the Underground Railroad: … Read More »
Podcast #203 – Samantha Ege
This award-winning musicologist, internationally recognized concert pianist, and London-based popular public speaker talks about her first book, South Side Impresarios: How Race Women Transformed Chicago’s Classical Music Scene, published by the University of Illinois Press in November 2024. Ege is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Southampton, and she is a leading scholar of African American composer Florence B. Price within the context of the Black Chicago Renaissance (1930-1950) and Black women’s dynamic… Read More »
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Podcast #202 – Diane Kiesel
Author, professor and retired New York Supreme Court judge, Diane Kiesel, talks about her latest book, When Charlie Met Joan: The Tragedy of the Chaplin Trials and the Failings of American Law. It is set to be published in February 2025 by the University of Michigan Press. While serving as a judge, Kiesel continued her career as a writer of non-fiction that began years before when she was a journalist in Washington, D.C. where… Read More »
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Podcast #201 – Mark Clifford
This author’s biography, The Troublemaker: How Jimmy Lai Became a Billionaire, Hong Kong’s Greatest Dissident, and China’s Most Feared Critic, was published by Simon & Schuster in December 2024. Clifford is the president of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, and he served as the executive director of the Hong Kong-based Asia Business Council and as a board director at Next Digital, the Hong Kong media giant founded and majority-owned by Jimmy… Read More »
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Podcast 200 – Max Boot
This historian, best-selling author and foreign-policy analyst talks about his latest book, Reagan: His Life and Legend. Published by Liveright in September 2024, this biography was recognized as one of the Ten Best Books of this year by The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Washington Post and the Economist. Boot’s previous biography, The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam, also was a New York Times… Read More »
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Podcast #199 – Kai Bird
This journalist’s co-authored and Pulitzer Prize winning biography, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, served as the inspiration for the Oscar winning film, Oppenheimer. Bird has written several critically acclaimed biographies, including The Color of Truth: McGeorge Bundy and William Bundy, Brothers in Arms; The Chairman: John J. McCloy and the Making of the American Establishment; The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames;… Read More »
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Podcast #198 – Pamela D. Toler
Historian and author Pamela D. Toler’s latest book, The Dragon from Chicago: The Untold Story of an American Reporter in Nazi Germany, was published in August 2024 by Beacon Press. In addition to this biography of Sigrid Schultz, the fearless woman who headed the Chicago Tribune’s Berlin bureau from 1925 to 1941, Toler has authored ten books of popular history for children and adults, including Heroines of Mercy Street: Real Nurses of the Civil War… Read More »
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Podcast #197 – David Greenberg
This veteran author and Rutgers University journalism professor speaks with BIO member Kevin McGruder about his latest book, John Lewis: A Life. It was published by Simon and Schuster in October 2024 and supported by grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Cullman Center of the New York Public Library, and the Leon Levy Center for Biography. Greenberg’s previous books include Nixon’s Shadow: The History of an Image and Republic … Read More »
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Podcast #196 – Carl Rollyson
Veteran biographer and emeritus Baruch College journalism professor Carl Rollyson talks about his latest book, Sylvia Plath Day by Day, Volume 2, published by the University Press of Mississippi in August 2024. Rollyson’s impressive literary output—of more than 40 books—includes examinations of William Faulkner, Amy Lowell, Walter Brennan, Lillian Hellman, Norman Mailer and Marilyn Monroe. He also coauthored Susan Sontag: The Making of an Icon, Revised and Updated. Rollyson’s reviews of biographies have appeared… Read More »
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Podcast #195 – Heath Hardage Lee
Award-winning historian, curator and biographer, Heath Hardage Lee, talks about her latest book, The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon: The Life and Times of Washington’s Most Private First Lady. It was published by St. Martin’s Press in August 2024. Lee’s work has been featured on the Today Show, C-Span, and on the Smithsonian Channel’s America’s Hidden Stories. She also writes about history and politics for publications such as Time, The Hill, The Atlantic and White … Read More »
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