2013 BIO Conference Set for NYC

November 14th, 2012

The program committee of Biographers International Organization, acting on the recommendation of the site committee, just announced that the fourth annual Compleat Biographer Conference will be held from May 17 through May 19, 2013, in New York City. The committee is still hashing out details for the conference site and the panels to be offered, as well as pre- and post-conference events; Hurricane Sandy delayed finalizing the conference site selection.

BIO president James McGrath Morris had nothing but high praise for the decision, saying the New York location should make this conference the best yet. “The response to holding it in New York City has been overwhelmingly positive,” he said. “Editors and agents are lining up to join us. Our conference has a reputation as one of the finest gatherings of writers in the country, and they won’t miss out on attending the meeting when it’s held in their backyard.”

Morris added that biographers from as far away as South America plan to attend because of the ease of reaching the city. “I’m betting that for the first time we will have to limit attendance.”

The program committee is chaired by BIO vice president Brian Jay Jones. Serving with him are Barbara Burkhardt, Cathy Curtis, Greg Daugherty, Oline Eaton, Barbara Fisher, Ted Geltner, Beverly Gray, Will Swift, and Felicity Yost. BIO members should thank them for their hard work and begin planning for a fun and informative weekend in the Big Apple.

The site committee, which handles all logistical matters relating to the conference, is still looking for members. Drop Morris a note if you live around New York and would like to help out.

Massie Embraces the Story

November 5th, 2012

by New York Correspondent Dona Munker

Robert K. Massie, a journalist and historian whose gift for vivid narrative has made him the preeminent American biographer of Russian royals, makes his job sound easy. “I am a storyteller,” he explains modestly, adding that he writes biography because “telling stories about peoplpe in the past is important to everyone trying to understand who we are and where we come from.”

Massie’s remarks came as part of the fifth annual Leon Levy Biography Lecture, held last month at the CUNY Graduate Center. The talk followed his recent winning of the 2012 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography for Catherine the Great: A Woman’s Life. Among his other literary successes, Massie’s life of Peter the Great won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize, while Nicholas and Alexandra was a durable New York Times bestseller.

Massie told the audience that the biographer whose aim is to “fully embrace the story being told” will find himself working with three key ingredients. The first of these, he said, is relevance. The reader must have the sense that the life under study is important because it is “part of a chain that affects his own life.” This sense of connection may simply be the result of the subject’s fame or the fame of the times in which she or he lived. Conveying that sense of relevance, however, is vital for holding the reader’s interest. Continue Reading…