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 #186 – Matthew Kennedy
This week film historian Matthew Kennedy talks about his latest book, On Elizabeth Taylor: An Opinionated Guide, published by Oxford University Press in May 2024. Kennedy also authored Roadshow! The Fall of Film Musicals in the 1960s, and he has written biographies of actresses Marie Dressler and Joan Blondell, and of director/screenwriter Edmund Goulding. Kennedy has introduced film series at the Museum of Modern Art, UCLA Film & Television Archive, and Pacific Film Archive,… Read More »
Podcast #185 – Rachel Kousser
This week we interview City University of New York (CUNY) professor and author Rachel Kousser. Her latest book, Alexander at the End of the World: The Forgotten Final Years of Alexander the Great, was published in July 2024 by Mariner Books. Kousser heads the Classics Department in CUNY’s Graduate Center and serves as a professor of ancient art and archaeology at Brooklyn College. One of her previous books, The Afterlives of Greek Sculpture: Interaction, Transformation, … Read More »
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Podcast #184 – Will Hermes
This time we interview author Will Hermes, whose latest book, Lou Reed: The King of New York, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in October 2023. Hermes is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone and a longtime contributor to NPR’s All Things Considered and The New York Times. He also is the author of Love Goes to Buildings on Fire, he writes for Pitchfork and other publications, and he co-edited SPIN: 20 … Read More »
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Podcast #183 – Amrita Chakrabarti Myers
This week we interview Amrita Chakrabarti Myers, an award-winning author and the Ruth N. Halls Associate Professor of history and gender studies at Indiana University in Bloomington. Her latest book, The Vice President’s Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn, was published by the University of North Carolina Press in October 2023. Myers also is the author of Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston. Amrita Chakrabarti… Read More »
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Podcast #182 – Brad Gooch
This week we interview poet, novelist, and biographer Brad Gooch. His latest book, Radiant: The Life and Line of Keith Haring, was published by Harper/HarperCollins in March 2024. Gooch’s previous ten books include Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor—a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and a New York Times bestseller—and City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O’Hara. Brad Gooch is the recipient… Read More »
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Podcast #181 – Marsha Gordon
This week we interview Marsha Gordon, author, professor, and director of Film Studies at North Carolina State University. Gordon’s latest book, Becoming the Ex-Wife: The Unconventional Life & Forgotten Writings of Ursula Parrott, was published by the University of California Press in April 2023. Gordon is a former National Humanities Center Fellow and an NEH Public Scholar. Her other books include Film is Like a Battleground: Sam Fuller’s War Movies, and Hollywood Ambitions: … Read More »
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Podcast #180 – Adam Nagourney
This week we interview Adam Nagourney, veteran journalist and author of, The Times: How the Newspaper of Record Survived Scandal, Scorn and the Transformation of Journalism, published by Crown Press in September 2023. After being hired by the New York Times in 1996, Nagourney served as the paper’s metropolitan political correspondent, chief national political correspondent, Los Angeles bureau chief, and West Coast culture reporter, returning to cover national politics in 2023. Before joining the Times… Read More »
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Podcast #179 – Barbara D. Savage
This week we interview award-winning author and first-time biographer, Barbara D. Savage. Her latest book, Merze Tate: The Global Odyssey of a Black Woman Scholar, is an incisive examination of a scholar who thrived despite steep obstacles, taking her from a farm in the Midwest to Kalamazoo to London and to the world beyond. Merze Tate was published by Yale University Press in November 2023. Savage is a historian and the Geraldine R. Segal Professor… Read More »
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Podcast #178 – Judith Tick
This week we interview Judith Tick, a Matthews Distinguished Professor Emerita at Northeastern University in Boston, and an award-winning author. Her latest book, Becoming Ella Fitzgerald: The Jazz Singer Who Transformed American Song, explores the life of one of the 20th century’s greatest jazz vocalists. It was published by W. W. Norton and Company in January of this year. In addition, Tick’s co-edited anthology (with Jane Bowers), Women Making Music: The Western Art Tradition, … Read More »
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Podcast #177 – Hampton Sides
This week we interview celebrated author Hampton Sides. His latest book, The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook, was published by Doubleday in April 2024. Sides is known for his gripping nonfiction adventure stories set in war or depicting epic expeditions of exploration. His bestselling narratives include, Ghost Soldiers, Blood and Thunder, Hellhound On His Trail, In the Kingdom of Ice,… Read More »
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