Seven BIO members have new biographies out in February:

• Betty Boyd Caroli, A Slumless America: Mary K. Simkhovitch and the Dream of Affordable Housing (Oxford University Press)
• Margena A. Christian, It’s No Wonder: The Life and Times of Motown’s Legendary Songwriter Sylvia Moy (Da Capo)
• Andrew S. Curran, Biography of a Dangerous Idea: A New History of Race from Louis XIV to Thomas Jefferson (Group biography of 13 Enlightenment figures) (Other Press)
• Patti M. Marxsen, Karen Blixen’s Search for Self: The Making of “Out of Africa” (LSU Press)
• Shelley Puhak, The Blood Countess: Murder, Betrayal, and the Making of a Monster (Elizabeth Bathory) (Bloomsbury Publishing)
• Gina Waggott, Scatman John: The Remarkable Story of the World’s Unlikeliest Popstar (John Larkin) (Bloomsbury Academic)
• Ethelene Whitmire, The Remarkable Life of Reed Peggram: The Man Who Stared Down World War II in the Name of Love (Viking)

The latest episodes of BIO Podcast:

• Jan. 16: Part two of the conversation between Pulitzer Prize-winner Ron Chernow and John A. Farrell. 
• Jan. 23: Carla Kaplan and Amanda Vaill, both longlisted for the 2025 National Book Critics Circle Awards, discuss their research and writing journeys. 
• Jan. 30: Andrew S. Curran chats with Jenny Skoog about his new book Biography of a Dangerous Idea: A New History of Race from Louis XIV to Thomas Jefferson (Other Press). 
• Feb. 6: Queen Mother: Black Nationalism, Reparations, and the Untold Story of Audrey Moore (Pantheon, 2025) is the latest book by Ashley D. Farmer. She speaks with Tamara Payne about it. 
• Feb. 13: Andrew Maraniss speaks with Jenny Skoog about the tenth-anniversary edition of his book Strong Inside: Perry Wallace and the Collision of Race and Sports in the South (Vanderbilt University, March 2024). 

Nicholas Boggs was interviewed by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael S. Jackson for Literary Arts: The Archive Project. Listen here. 

Greg Daugherty’s magazine-history blog When Editors Were Gods, now in its 18th year, has moved to a new platform. Check it out here. 

Jennifer Homans, dance critic for The New Yorker, will speak with Miriam Horn on April 23 at the Leon Levy Center for Biography in New York City about Horn’s forthcoming biography of George B. Schaller. Register here. 

Friends of the Library of Collier County in Naples, Florida, hosted Jonathan Eig on February 16 for a talk on his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Martin Luther King Jr. Learn more. 

Devoney Looser’s Wild for Austen: A Rebellious, Subversive and Untamed Jane (St. Martin’s Press, 2025) was named a USA Today Best-Selling Title in December. Looser was interviewed by CBS’s Sunday Morning for its December 12 segment on Austen’s 250th Birthday. 

Author Thad Ziolkowski will lead a conversation with Ru Marshall at the Leon Levy Center for Biography in New York City on May 19, about Marshall’s forthcoming biography, American Trickster: The Hidden Lives of Carlos Castaneda (OR Books). Register here.