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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

In this week’s episode we interview Ty Seidule, author of Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause, published by St. Martin’s Press in January 2021. Seidule served in the U.S. Army for thirty-six years, retiring as a brigadier general in 2020. Also, he is a Professor Emeritus of History at West Point, where he taught for two decades. Seidule is a New America Fellow, as well… Read More »

In this week’s episode, we interview Kevin McGruder, Associate Professor of history at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He is a first-time biographer and author of Philip Payton: The Father of Black Harlem, published by Columbia University Press in July 2021. During the 1990s, Kevin McGruder served as the director of real estate development for the Abyssinian Development Corporation, a nonprofit church-based organization in Harlem, and he wrote a book about race and… Read More »

In this week’s episode, we interview journalist Molly Ball, author of The New York Times bestseller Pelosi, a biography of the first woman to serve as the U.S. Congress’ Speaker of the House. Pelosi was published in May 2020 by Henry Holt. Molly Ball is Time magazine’s national political correspondent and a frequent television and radio commentator. She has received numerous awards for her political coverage, including the Dirksen Award for Distinguished Reporting of… Read More »

In this week’s episode we interview Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina, Professor of Biography and English at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Working with 19 other authors, her book of edited biographies, Britain’s Black Past, was published by Liverpool University Press in March 2020.  She also has published nine other books, including Carrington: A Life; Black London: Life Before Emancipation; Frances Hodgson Burnett: The Unexpected Life of the Author of The Secret Garden; and Mr. and … Read More »

In this week’s episode, we interview Tamara Payne. Working with her late father, the  award-winning and New York-based print journalist Les Payne, Tamara Payne co-wrote The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X. Published in October 2020 by Liveright, this biography of the charismatic and controversial Muslim leader known as Malcolm X earned a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award. Tamara Payne was interviewed in her home in New York City on… Read More »

In this week’s episode, we interview Dinyar Patel, history professor at the S. B. Jain Institute of Management and Research in Mumbai, India, and the author of Naoroji: Pioneer of Indian Nationalism, published in May 2020 by Harvard University Press. Dinyar Patel was interviewed in his Mumbai home on July 15, 2021, via Zoom by writer and BIO member Sonja Williams. … Read More »