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 Episode #86 – Tyrone McKinley Freeman
This week we interview Tyrone McKinley Freeman, an award-winning associate professor of Philanthropic Studies and director of undergraduate programs at Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. His latest book, Madam C.J. Walker’s Gospel of Giving: Black Women’s Philanthropy During Jim Crow, was published by the University of Illinois Press in September 2020. His work has appeared or been cited in the New York Times, O: The Oprah Magazine, TIME, Harvard … Read More »
Podcast Episode #85 – Debby Applegate
This week we interview biographer and historian, Debby Applegate. Her first book, The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher, won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Book Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. This book also was named one of the best books of the year by the New York Times Book Review, NPR’s Fresh Air, the Washington … Read More »
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Podcast Episode #84 – Gary Ginsberg
Happy New Year! This week we interview Gary Ginsberg, author of The New York Times bestseller, First Friends: The Powerful, Unsung (and Unelected) People Who Shaped Out Presidents, published by Twelve in July 2021. The book explores nine select American presidents (Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Pierce, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton) and the relationships they had with their best friends. A lawyer by training, Ginsberg worked… Read More »
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Podcast Episode #83 – Writing the First Biography of Your Subject
This week we offer the next episode in a special mini-series featuring highlights from panel discussions conducted during BIO’s first virtual annual conference, held May 14-16, 2021. The session, Writing the First Biography of Your Subject, featured biographers Justin Gifford (Revolution or Death: The Life of Eldridge Cleaver), Abigail Santamaria (Joy: Poet, Seeker, and the Woman Who Captivated C. S. Lewis) and Carol Sklenicka (Alice Adams: Portrait of a Writer… Read More »
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Podcast Episode #82 – The Art and Technology of Interviewing
This week we offer the next episode in a special mini-series featuring highlights from panel discussions conducted during BIO’s first virtual annual conference, held May 14-16, 2021. The session, The Art and Technology of Interviewing, featured authors John Brady (The Art of Interviewing), Claudia Dreifus (Interview; The New York Times’ Scientific Conversations: Interviews on Science) and Brian Jay Jones (Becoming Dr. Seuss: Theodor Geisel and the Making of an … Read More »
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Podcast Episode #81 – How to Pay for It…Or Funding Your Biography
This week we offer the next episode in a special mini-series featuring highlights from panel discussions conducted during BIO’s first virtual annual conference, held May 14-16, 2021. The session, “How to Pay For It, Or Funding Your Biography,” featured biographer Carla Kaplan (Miss Anne in Harlem: The White Women of the Black Renaissance), Steve Hindle of California’s Huntington Library, and Mark Silver of the National Endowment for the Humanties. The panel was moderated… Read More »
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Podcast Episode #80 – Researching Under-Documented Lives
This week we offer the next episode in a special mini-series featuring highlights from panel discussions conducted during BIO’s first virtual annual conference, held May 14-16, 2021. The session, “Researching Under-Documented Lives, featured biographers Gaiutra Bahadur (Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture), Channing Gerald Joseph and Pamela Newkirk (Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga), The panel was moderated by author and BIO member Kavita Das (Poignant Song: The Life … Read More »
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Podcast Episode #79 – Swipe Right for your Subject: How Do You Know It’s the Right One?
This week we offer the first in a mini-series of special episodes featuring highlights from panel discussions conducted during BIO’s first virtual annual conference, held May 14-16, 2021. The session, Swipe Right for your Subject: How Do You Know It’s the Right One?, featured biographer Mary V. Dearborn (Ernest Hemingway: A Biography), long time book editor Gerald Howard and biographer Eric K. Washington (Boss of the Grips: The Life of James … Read More »
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Podcast Episode #78 – Daniel de Visé
This week we interview veteran Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist and writer, Daniel de Visé. Exploring the life and times of a legendary guitarist and singer, his latest biography, King of the Blues, The Rise and Reign of B.B. King, was published by Grove Press in October 2021. De Visé’s previous books include biographies of actors Andy Griffin and Don Knotts (Andy & Don, Simon & Schuster), as well as professional cyclist… Read More »
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Podcast Episode #77 – David Hajdu and John Carey
In this week’s episode, we interview David Hajdu and John Carey, collaborators on a biography in graphic form about three vaudeville stars. A Revolution in Three Acts: The Radical Vaudeville of Bert Williams, Eva Tanguay and Julian Eltinge was published Columbia University Press in September 2021. David Hajdu is a biographer, cultural historian, novelist, and songwriter. His previous biographies include Lush Life, Positively 4th Street and Adrianne Geffel, and he teaches at the… Read More »
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