Podcasts

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 #150 – Ilyon Woo

This week we interview Ilyon Woo, the New York Times best-selling author of Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom, published by Simon & Schuster in January 2023. This biography details the story of Ellen and William Craft who escaped slavery through daring, determination, and disguise. Woo also authored The Great Divorce: A Nineteenth-Century Mother’s Extraordinary Fight Against Her Husband, the Shakers, and Her Times, and her articles have appeared in… Read More »

Podcast #149 – Caleb Gayle

This week we feature award-winning journalist and author Caleb Gayle, who writes about the history of race and identity. His latest book, We Refuse to Forget: A True Story of Black Creeks, American Identity and Power (Riverhead Books, June 2023), is about Black members of the indigenous Creek Nation. It was awarded the Matthew Power Literary Reporting Award. Gayle’s writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, The GuardianRead More »

Podcast #148 – Paul Fisher

This week we feature biographer and cultural historian Paul Fisher. His most recent award-winning biography, The Grand Affair: John Singer Sargent in His World, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in November 2022. Fisher currently serves as an American Studies Professor at Wellesley College; he has also taught at Yale, Wesleyan, Boston University, and Harvard. His group biography, House of Wits: An Intimate Portrait of the James Family (Henry Holt and Co., 2008)… Read More »

Podcast #147 – Angela V. John

This week we feature Angela V. John, an historian and biographer from Wales who serves as the president of Llafur, the Welsh People’s History Society. Her latest book, War, Journalism, and the Shaping of the Twentieth Century: The Life and Times of Henry W. Nevinson, was published by Bloomsbury in February of this year. It examines the life of a journalist who has been called the “king” of correspondents. John has served as a… Read More »

Podcast #146 – Jonathan Eig

This week we feature Jonathan Eig, former senior writer for The Wall Street Journal and the author of a new biography of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—King: A Life (Farrar Straus and Giroux, May 2023). Eig is a New York Times bestselling author of five previous books including: Ali: A Life (Mariner Books, 2017); Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig (Simon & Schuster, 2005); and Opening Day: The Story of Read More »

Podcast #145 – Kerri K. Greenidge

This week we interview Kerri K. Greenidge, the Mellon Assistant Professor in the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora at Tufts University. The author most recently of The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in An American Family (Liveright, November 2022), Greenidge also wrote Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter (Liveright, 2019), one of The New York Times’ top picks of 2019. She is also the recipient of the… Read More »

Podcast #144 – Celia Stahr

This week we interview Celia Stahr, author of Frida in America: The Creative Awakening of a Great Artist (St. Martin’s Press, March 2020). This biography of celebrated Mexican artist Frida Kahlo’s formative time during the early 1930s in San Francisco, Detroit, and New York, received many positive reviews in publications such as The New York Times, Art in America, and Booklist. Stahr teaches art history at the University of San Francisco, where… Read More »

Podcast #143 – Jonny Steinberg

This week we interview Jonny Steinberg, author of Winnie and Nelson Mandela: Portrait of a Marriage, published by Knopf in May 2023. Steinberg has written several books about everyday life in the wake of South Africa’s transition to democracy, and he is a two-time winner of South Africa’s premier nonfiction award and an inaugural winner of the Donald Windham-Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prize. Steinberg served as professor of African Studies at Oxford University and currently… Read More »

Podcast #142 – Sung-Yoon Lee

This week we interview Sung-Yoon Lee, author of The Sister: The Extraordinary Story of Kim Yo Jong, the Most Powerful Woman in North Korea, published in America by Public Affairs in September of this year. A fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Lee has taught Korean history at the Fletcher School, Tufts University. Sung-Yoon Lee is interviewed by BIO member Jennifer Skoog.        … Read More »

Podcast #141 – Jennifer Homans and Pamela Newkirk

This special episode features a spirited conversation between award-winning journalist and biographer Pamela Newkirk and BIO’s 2023 Plutarch Award-winner Jennifer Homans. The Plutarch Award recognizes the best biography of the year, as determined by a BIO committee of distinguished biographers. Homans earned this honor for her latest book, Mr. B.: Balanchine’s 20th Century (Random House, November 2022). Homans is the dance critic for The New Yorker, a Scholar-in-Residence at New York University, and the founding… Read More »

Speakers

  • Abigail Santamaria
  • Adam Nagourney
  • Aidan Levy
  • Alan Pell Crawford
  • Alejandro Madrid
  • Alison M. Parker
  • Allison Gilbert
  • Amrita Chakrabarti Myers
  • Anastasia Curwood
  • Andrew Marble
  • Andrew Meier
  • Andrew Nagorski
  • Angela V. John
  • Annette Gordon-Reed
  • Anthony DeCurtis
  • Ash Carter
  • Ashley Brown
  • A’Lelia Bundles
  • Barbara D. Savage
  • Benjamin Taylor
  • Bernice Lerner
  • Betsy Rohaly Smoot
  • Beverly Gage
  • Beverly Gray
  • Brad Gooch
  • Brad Snyder
  • Brian Harker
  • Brian Jay Jones
  • Bridgette M. Davis
  • Bruce Kennett
  • Caleb Gayle
  • Candice Millard
  • Carl Rollyson
  • Carla Kaplan
  • Carol Sklenicka
  • Caroline Fraser
  • Catherine Reef
  • Cathy Curtis
  • Celia Stahr
  • Chad Williams
  • Channing Gerald Joseph
  • Claudia Dreifus
  • Cynthia Carr
  • Dan Blank
  • Daniel de Visé
  • Danny Fingeroth
  • Daphne Palmer Geanacopoulos
  • David Blight
  • David Greenberg
  • David Hajdu
  • David Levering Lewis
  • David Maraniss
  • David Michaelis
  • David Nasaw
  • David O. Stewart
  • David Remnick
  • David Waldstreicher
  • Dean King
  • Debby Applegate
  • Declan Taintor
  • Diana P. Parsell
  • Dinyar Patel
  • Doug Melville
  • E. James West
  • E. Stanly Godbold
  • Edward O'Shea
  • Eric K. Washington
  • Etta Madden
  • Eugene Meyer
  • Fergus M. Bordewich
  • Frances Wilson
  • Gaiutra Bahadur
  • Gary Ginsberg
  • Gayle Feldman
  • Gene Andrew Jarrett
  • Gerald Howard
  • Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina
  • Gwendolyn Mink
  • Hampton Sides
  • Hans Renders
  • Heath Lee
  • Helen Rappaport
  • Hermione Lee
  • Hilary A. Hallett
  • Hilary Holladay
  • Holly Van Leuven
  • Ilyon Woo
  • Imani Perry
  • Iris Jamahl Dunkle
  • J. C. Hallman
  • Jack Kelly
  • James Atlas
  • James H. Johnston
  • James McGrath Morris
  • Janice P. Nimura
  • Jayne E. Zanglein
  • Jeff Pearlman
  • Jeffrey C. Stewart and David Levering Lewis
  • Jennifer Homans
  • Jennifer Skoog
  • Jessica Max Stein
  • John A. Farrell
  • John Brady
  • John Carey
  • John Kaag
  • John Markoff
  • Jonathan Alter
  • Jonathan Eig
  • Jonny Steinberg
  • Joy-Ann Reid
  • Judith Thurman
  • Judith Tick
  • Judy Tzu-Chun Wu
  • Julie Dobrow
  • Justin Gifford
  • Justin Martin
  • Justin Tinsley
  • Kai Bird
  • Karin Roffman
  • Katherine Flynn
  • Kathleen Stone
  • Katie Gee Salisbury
  • Kavita Das
  • Ken Burns
  • Kenneth Miller
  • Kerri Greenidge
  • Kevin McGruder
  • Kitty Kelley
  • Kitty Kelley Part I
  • Kitty Kelley Part II
  • Kostya Kennedy
  • Larry Rohter
  • Laurie Gwen Shapiro
  • Lerita Coleman Brown
  • Leslie Brody
  • Li Shan Chan
  • Linda Leavell
  • Lisa Napoli
  • Lydia Moland
  • Marc Leepson
  • Marcia Biederman
  • Marilyn Greenwald
  • Marilyn S. Greenwald
  • Mark Clague
  • mark lee gardner
  • Mark Silver
  • Marko Perko
  • Marsha Gordon
  • Martha Ackmann
  • Mary Ann Caws
  • Mary V. Dearborn
  • Maryemma Graham
  • Matthew Kennedy
  • Max Boot
  • Megan Marshall
  • Melinda Ponder
  • Michael Hainey
  • Michael Kranish
  • Molly Ball
  • Monica Szurmuk
  • Natalie Dykstra
  • Neil Baldwin
  • Nicholas L. Syrett
  • Nigel Hamilton
  • Pamela D. Toler
  • Pamela Newkirk
  • Patrick Parr
  • Patti Hartigan
  • Paul Fisher
  • Paulina Bren
  • Paulina L. Alberto
  • Peniel E. Joseph
  • Philip Clark
  • Philip Short
  • Rachel Jamison Webster
  • Rachel Kousser
  • Rachel L. Swarns
  • Rachel Shteir
  • Raquel Ramsey and Tricia Aurand
  • Ray Anthony Shepard
  • RJ Smith
  • Robert Samuels 
  • Ruth Franklin
  • Sam Kashner
  • Sarah Burnes
  • Satvinder Juss
  • Scott Shane
  • Sheena Harris
  • Silvana Paternostro
  • Sonja Williams
  • Soyica Diggs Colbert
  • Stacy Schiff
  • Stephen Budiansky
  • Stephen Heyman
  • Steve Hindle
  • Sung-Yoon Lee
  • Susan Page
  • Tamara Payne
  • Tanisha C. Ford
  • Thomas Hertog
  • Tim Duggan
  • Toluse Olorunnipa
  • Tom Reiss
  • Tomiko Brown-Nagin
  • Tonya Bolden
  • Ty Seidule
  • Tyrone McKinley Freeman
  • Vanda Krefft
  • Walter Isaacson
  • Wanda A. Hendricks
  • Will Hermes
  • William Taubman
  • Winston James
  • Yun Li
  • Yunte Huang