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 »

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 »

Celebrated documentary filmmaker and Television Hall of Fame inductee Ken Burns, talks about his latest film, Leonardo da Vinci. It will air nationwide on PBS network stations on November 18 and 19, 2024. Burns has directed and produced such acclaimed historical documentaries as, The Civil War; Baseball; Jazz; The War; The National Parks:  America’s Best Idea; Prohibition, The Vietnam War; Country Music; The U.S. and the Holocaust and The American Buffalo. Burns’ biographical documentaries… Read More »

Author Susan Blumberg-Kason talks about her latest book, Bernardine’s Shanghai Salon: The Story of the Doyenne of Old China, published by Post Hill Press in November 2023. Blumberg-Kason has also authored Good Chinese Wife: A Love Affair with China Gone Wrong and she co-edited the book Hong Kong Noir. Blumberg-Kason is a regular contributor to the Asian Review of Books and World Literature Today, and her work has appeared in the Los Angeles … Read More »

This week we interview Benjamin Taylor, author of Chasing Bright Medusas: The Life of Willa Cather. This biography of Cather, a celebrated American novelist, was published in November 2023 by Viking. In 2021, Taylor received an award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. One of his previous memoirs, The Hue and Cry at Our House, received the 2018 Los Angeles Times/Christopher Isherwood Prize, and it was named a New York Times Editors’… Read More »

This week we interview Patti Hartigan, award-winning journalist and author of August Wilson: A Life. This biography, Hartigan’s first, about the legendary, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright who powerfully and poetically chronicled African American life in the 20th century, was published in August 2023 by Simon & Schuster. Hartigan has had a long career at the Boston Globe where she served as arts reporter, drama critic, and cultural columnist. Her work has appeared in numerous publications,… Read More »

This week we interview veteran independent writer, historian, and journalist, Fergus M. Bordewich. His latest book, Klan War: Ulysses S. Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction, was published in October 2023 by Knopf. Bordewich has written eight previous nonfiction books, including the award-winning The First Congress: How James Madison, George Washington, and a Group of Extraordinary Men Invented the Government, and America’s Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise that … Read More »

This week we interview Katie Gee Salisbury, author of Not Your China Doll: The Wild and Shimmering Life of Anna May Wong, a new biography of the first Asian American movie star. This biography was published by Dutton in March 2024. Gee Salisbury’s work has appeared in the New York Times, Vanity Fair, The Believer, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, and elsewhere. She was a finalist for the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship… Read More »

This week we interview award-winning journalist and author Kenneth Miller about his first biography, Mapping the Darkness: The Visionary Scientists Who Unlocked the Mysteries of Sleep. It was published in October 2023 by Hachette Books. Miller is a contributing editor for Discover, and his work has appeared in Time, Life, Esquire, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, Aeon, and many other publications. Miller’s honors include the John Bartlow Martin Award for Public Interest Magazine… Read More »

This week we interview Jessica (Max) Stein, author of Funny Boy: The Richard Hunt Biography. This first-time biography of a highly regarded Muppet/Sesame Street performer was published in March 2024 by Rutgers University Press. Stein is New York-based writer who teaches writing and literature at the City University of New York. Biographers International Organization honored Stein’s Funny Boy book proposal as one of three finalists for its 2016 Hazel Rowley Prize. Stein’s writing has… Read More »