Biographers International Organization

In this special episode, BIO’s former president and one of the organization’s founders, talks about the history of BIO and its influence. In 2019 McGrath Morris received the BIO Award, annually presented to a writer who has made a major contribution to the advancement of the art and craft of biography. His award-winning books have included Tony Hillerman: A Life; The Ambulance Drivers: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and A Friendship Made and Lost in War; Eye on the Struggle: Ethel Payne, The First Lady of the Black Press; Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power; The Rose Man of Sing Sing: A True Tale of Life, Murder, and Redemption in the Age of Yellow Journalism, and, Jailhouse Journalism: The Four Estate Behind Bars. He is also the author of the Kindle Singles Revolution by Murder: Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and the Plot to Kill Henry Clay Frick. and The Radio Operator: Robert Ford’s Last Stand in the Fight to Save Tibet. James “Jamie” McGrath Morris was interviewed by BIO member and podcast producer Jenny Skoog.

This award-winning author of biographers for young readers talks about his writing career and his long-term service as a founding BIO board member. His most recent book, A Long Time Coming: A Lyrical Biography of Race in America From Ona Judge to Barack Obama, was published by Calkins Creek in August 2023. Shepard initiated and organized BIO’s exciting forthcoming regional conference, Telling the Stories of Black Lives through Biography. Scheduled for March 21-22, 2025, this conference will be held at Troy University in Montgomery, Alabama, and it will feature a host of speakers, panel discussions, museum tours, and receptions. Ray Anthony Shepard was interviewed by BIO member and podcast producer Jenny Skoog.

This first-time biographer’s, Pure: The Sexual Revolutions of Marilyn Chambers, explores the untold story of the world’s most famous X-rated star. Chambers rose to fame as the face of Ivory Snow laundry detergent and the star of the X-rated film, Behind the Green Door. Stearns’s book was published by Headpress in May 2024. As a former journalist, Jared Stearns currently serves as the editor of BIO’s newsletters, The Biographer’s Craft and The Insider, and he was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Simon Read.  

This scholar and author’s latest book, Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde, was published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in August 2024. As a queer Black feminist love evangelist, Gumbs has written four earlier books, including Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals, which won the 2022 Whiting Award in Non-Fiction. Gumbs is a recipient of the Windham-Campbell Prize in Poetry, the National Endowment of the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship, and a National Humanities Center Fellowship. She is currently working on her next book in honor of June Jordan and Fannie Lou Hamer. Alexis Pauline Gumbs was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Tamara Payne. Both authors will appear at BIO’s Telling the Stories of Black Lives Through Biography, scheduled for March 21-22, 2025, in Montgomery, Alabama.

This historian and author’s Black Panther Woman: The Political and Spiritual Life of Ericka Huggins, was published in January 2025 by New York University Press. It examines the life and legacy of one of the longest-serving women members of the Black Panther Party. Huggins also is an educator, poet, mother, and a former political prisoner. As a first-time biographer, Mary Phillips serves as an associate professor of African American Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She has published several scholarly journal articles, and her essays have appeared in the Huffington Post, Ms. Magazine’s blog, New Black Man (in Exile), Colorlines, Vibe Magazine, and the Black Youth Project. Mary Frances Phillips was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Sonja Williams.

This award-winning archaeologist, author and scholar talks about her latest book, Apostle of Liberation: AME Bishop Paul Quinn and the Underground Railroad. Published by Rowman and Littlefield this month, this biography explores the life of a larger-than-life leader in the African Methodist Episcopal Church – a man who actively supported the education of enslaved Black Americans and their freedom struggles during and after slavery. LaRoche also authored Free Black Communities and the Underground Railroad: The Geography of Resistance, and she is an associate research professor in Historic Preservation in the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at the University of Maryland. Cheryl LaRoche was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Kevin McGruder.    

This award-winning musicologist, internationally recognized concert pianist, and London-based popular public speaker talks about her first book, South Side Impresarios: How Race Women Transformed Chicago’s Classical Music Scene, published by the University of Illinois Press in November 2024. Ege is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Southampton, and she is a leading scholar of African American composer Florence B. Price within the context of the Black Chicago Renaissance (1930-1950) and Black women’s dynamic networks of advocacy, empowerment, and uplift. In 2018, Ege released her debut album, Four Women, featuring the music of pioneering women composers Price, Margaret Bonds, Carol Kapralova, and Ethel Bilsland, and she has released several critically acclaimed albums since then. Samantha Ege was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Sonja Williams.    

Author, professor and retired New York Supreme Court judge, Diane Kiesel, talks about her latest book, When Charlie Met Joan: The Tragedy of the Chaplin Trials and the Failings of American Law. It is set to be published in February 2025 by the University of Michigan Press. While serving as a judge, Kiesel continued her career as a writer of non-fiction that began years before when she was a journalist in Washington, D.C. where she reported on Congress and the Supreme Court for several California newspapers. Kiesel has authored two editions of a textbook on domestic violence law, and an award-winning biography of Dr. Dorothy Boulding, a civil rights pioneer. Diane Kiesel was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Debby Applegate.    

This author’s biography, The Troublemaker: How Jimmy Lai Became a Billionaire, Hong Kong’s Greatest Dissident, and China’s Most Feared Critic, was published by Simon & Schuster in December 2024. Clifford is the president of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, and he served as the executive director of the Hong Kong-based Asia Business Council and as a board director at Next Digital, the Hong Kong media giant founded and majority-owned by Jimmy Lai. During Clifford’s nearly three decades in Hong Kong, he was the editor-in-chief of two English-language newspapers and won numerous journalism, academic, and book awards. His previous book was Today Hong Kong, Tomorrow the World: What China’s Crackdown Reveals About Its Plans to End Freedom Everywhere. Mark Clifford was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Sonja Williams.    

This historian, best-selling author and foreign-policy analyst talks about his latest book, Reagan: His Life and Legend. Published by Liveright in September 2024, this biography was recognized as one of the Ten Best Books of this year by The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Washington Post and the Economist. Boot’s previous biography, The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam, also was a New York Times bestseller and a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize. Boot has served as a foreign policy adviser to the presidential campaigns of John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Marco Rubio, and he has contributed regularly several publications, including the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Foreign Policy and The New York Times. Now serving as a senior fellow for national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, Max Boot was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member John “Jack” Farrell.    

This journalist’s co-authored and Pulitzer Prize winning biography, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, served as the inspiration for the Oscar winning film, Oppenheimer. Bird has written several critically acclaimed biographies, including The Color of Truth: McGeorge Bundy and William Bundy, Brothers in Arms; The Chairman: John J. McCloy and the Making of the American Establishment; The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames; and The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter. Bird currently serves as the Executive Director and Distinguished Lecturer at the CUNY Graduate Center’s Leon Levy Center for Biography in New York City. Presently, he is working on a biography of lawyer Roy Cohn. Kai Bird was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member John “Jack” Farrell.    

Historian and author Pamela D. Toler’s latest book, The Dragon from Chicago: The Untold Story of an American Reporter in Nazi Germany, was published in August 2024 by Beacon Press. In addition to this biography of Sigrid Schultz, the fearless woman who headed the Chicago Tribune’s Berlin bureau from 1925 to 1941, Toler has authored ten books of popular history for children and adults, including Heroines of Mercy Street: Real Nurses of the Civil War and Women Warriors: An Unexpected History. Toler’s work has appeared in American Scholar, Aramco World, Calliope, History Channel Magazine, MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, Ms., Time.com, The Washington Post and the National Geographic. Pamela D. Toler was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Sonja Williams.    

This veteran author and Rutgers University journalism professor speaks with BIO member Kevin McGruder about his latest book, John Lewis: A Life. It was published by Simon and Schuster in October 2024 and supported by grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Cullman Center of the New York Public Library, and the Leon Levy Center for Biography. Greenberg’s previous books include Nixon’s Shadow: The History of an Image and Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency. Formerly acting editor of The New Republic and a columnist for Slate, Greenberg now writes regularly for Politico, Liberties, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. His work has also been featured in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, The Wall Street Journal, and numerous academic journals.    

Veteran biographer and emeritus Baruch College journalism professor Carl Rollyson talks about his latest book, Sylvia Plath Day by Day, Volume 2, published by the University Press of Mississippi in August 2024. Rollyson’s impressive literary output—of more than 40 books—includes examinations of William Faulkner, Amy Lowell, Walter Brennan, Lillian Hellman, Norman Mailer and Marilyn Monroe. He also coauthored Susan Sontag: The Making of an Icon, Revised and Updated. Rollyson’s reviews of biographies have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle and New Criterion, and he writes a twice weekly column on biography for the New York Sun. Carl Rollyson was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member John A. Farrell.    

Award-winning historian, curator and biographer, Heath Hardage Lee, talks about her latest book, The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon: The Life and Times of Washington’s Most Private First Lady. It was published by St. Martin’s Press in August 2024. Lee’s work has been featured on the Today Show, C-Span, and on the Smithsonian Channel’s America’s Hidden Stories. She also writes about history and politics for publications such as Time, The Hill, The Atlantic and White House History Quarterly, and her second book, The League of Wives, is being developed into a television series. Heath Hardage Lee was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member John A. Farrell.    

Celebrated documentary filmmaker and Television Hall of Fame inductee Ken Burns, talks about his latest film, Leonardo da Vinci. It will air nationwide on PBS network stations on November 18 and 19, 2024. Burns has directed and produced such acclaimed historical documentaries as, The Civil War; Baseball; Jazz; The War; The National Parks: America’s Best Idea; Prohibition, The Vietnam War; Country Music; The U.S. and the Holocaust and The American Buffalo. Burns’ biographical documentaries include The Roosevelts: An Intimate History; Muhammad Ali; Benjamin Franklin; Jackie Robinson and Hemmingway. Burn’s films have earned dozens of major awards, including seventeen Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards and two Oscar nominations. Additionally, he earned a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Ken Burns was interviewed by BIO member John A. Farrell. Photo credit: Stephanie Berger.    

Author Susan Blumberg-Kason talks about her latest book, Bernardine’s Shanghai Salon: The Story of the Doyenne of Old China, published by Post Hill Press in November 2023. Blumberg-Kason has also authored Good Chinese Wife: A Love Affair with China Gone Wrong and she co-edited the book Hong Kong Noir. Blumberg-Kason is a regular contributor to the Asian Review of Books and World Literature Today, and her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, PopMatters, and the South China Morning Post. She is currently working on a biography of Golda Meir. Susan Blumberg-Kason was interviewed by BIO member Jenny Skoog.    

This week we interview Benjamin Taylor, author of Chasing Bright Medusas: The Life of Willa Cather. This biography of Cather, a celebrated American novelist, was published in November 2023 by Viking. In 2021, Taylor received an award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. One of his previous memoirs, The Hue and Cry at Our House, received the 2018 Los Angeles Times/Christopher Isherwood Prize, and it was named a New York Times Editors’ Choice. Taylor’s Proust: The Search was named a Best Book of 2016 by Thomas Mallon in The New York Times Book Review and by Robert McCrum in The Observer (London). Taylor is a past fellow and current trustee of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and he serves as president of the Edward F. Albee Foundation. Benjamin Taylor was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina.    

This week we interview Patti Hartigan, award-winning journalist and author of August Wilson: A Life. This biography, Hartigan’s first, about the legendary, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright who powerfully and poetically chronicled African American life in the 20th century, was published in August 2023 by Simon & Schuster. Hartigan has had a long career at the Boston Globe where she served as arts reporter, drama critic, and cultural columnist. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times and American Theatre. Patti Hartigan was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Sonja Williams.    

This week we interview veteran independent writer, historian, and journalist, Fergus M. Bordewich. His latest book, Klan War: Ulysses S. Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction, was published in October 2023 by Knopf. Bordewich has written eight previous nonfiction books, including the award-winning The First Congress: How James Madison, George Washington, and a Group of Extraordinary Men Invented the Government, and America’s Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise that Preserved the Union. Bordewich’s Bound for Canaan, about the Underground Railroad, was named one of the New York Public Library’s ten best books of 2005, and he edited a landmark photojournalistic account of the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, in Beijing. Bordewich’s articles have appeared in many national magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, Smithsonian, and American Heritage. Fergus M. Bordewich was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member John A. Farrell.    

This week we interview Katie Gee Salisbury, author of Not Your China Doll: The Wild and Shimmering Life of Anna May Wong, a new biography of the first Asian American movie star. This biography was published by Dutton in March 2024. Gee Salisbury’s work has appeared in the New York Times, Vanity Fair, The Believer, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, and elsewhere. She was a finalist for the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship in 2021 and she gave the TED Talk, “As American as Chop Suey.” Gee Salisbury also writes the newsletter Half-Caste Woman. A fifth-generation Chinese American who hails from Southern California, she now lives in Brooklyn. Katie Gee Salisbury was interviewed by BIO member Jenny Skoog.    

This week we interview award-winning journalist and author Kenneth Miller about his first biography, Mapping the Darkness: The Visionary Scientists Who Unlocked the Mysteries of Sleep. It was published in October 2023 by Hachette Books. Miller is a contributing editor for Discover, and his work has appeared in Time, Life, Esquire, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, Aeon, and many other publications. Miller’s honors include the John Bartlow Martin Award for Public Interest Magazine Journalism, the ASJA Outstanding Article Award for science writing, and the June Roth Memorial Award for medical writing. Kenneth Miller was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Sonja Williams.    

This week we interview Jessica (Max) Stein, author of Funny Boy: The Richard Hunt Biography. This first-time biography of a highly regarded Muppet/Sesame Street performer was published in March 2024 by Rutgers University Press. Stein is New York-based writer who teaches writing and literature at the City University of New York. Biographers International Organization honored Stein’s Funny Boy book proposal as one of three finalists for its 2016 Hazel Rowley Prize. Stein’s writing has been cited in The New York Times, and she received an Amy Award for young writers from Poets and Writers magazine, and an Ippie Award for Best Editorial from the Independent Press Association. A reporter and former editor of The Indypendent, Stein has published work in over 100 magazines and journals, including a longtime column at The Bilerico Project. Jessica (Max) Stein was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Brian Jay Jones.    

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, and written for the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, Turner Classic Movies, and the National Film Registry. He is currently host and curator of the CinemaLit series at the Mechanics’ Institute Library in San Francisco. Matthew Kennedy was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Debby Applegate.    

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, Destruction, received an Archaeological Institute of America Publication Subvention Award and was shortlisted for the Runciman Book Award for a book on Greek history or culture. Kousser has received fellowships from the National Endowment of the Humanities, the Getty Research Institute, and the Center for the Advanced Study of the Visual Arts. Rachel Kousser was interviewed by BIO member Jenny Skoog.    

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 Years of Alternative Music. Will Hermes was interviewed in New York City at BIO’s May 2024 annual conference by fellow biographer and BIO member Laurie Gwen Shapiro. Image credit: Forrest Scholl    

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 Myers was interviewed in New York City at BIO’s 2024 annual conference by BIO member Jenny Skoog.  

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 of National Endowment for the Humanities and Guggenheim fellowships, and he was interviewed in New York City at BIO’s 2024 annual conference by BIO member Jenny Skoog.  

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: Celebrity in the Movie Age. Gordon has co-directed three documentary shorts, and she recently received a 2024 Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship to work on her newest documentary about the visual artist Alexander Bogardy. Marsha Gordon was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Debby Applegate.  

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, he worked at USA Today, The New York Daily News, and the Gannett Westchester Newspapers. Adam Nagourney was interviewed by BIO member and fellow biographer Lisa Napoli.  

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 of American Social Thought at the University of Pennsylvania. Her other works include Your Spirits Walk Beside Us, winner of the 2012 Grawemeyer Award in Religion. Barbara D. Savage was interviewed by BIO member and fellow biographer A’Lelia Bundles.  

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, 1150-1950, was a pioneering text for the study of gender and women’s history in music. In 2013 the Society for American Music established a fellowship in Tick’s name. Judith Tick was interviewed by BIO member and fellow biographer Sonja Williams.  

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, and On Desperate Ground. Sides has been a contributor to many national newspapers and magazines, and his journalistic work, collected in numerous published anthologies, has been twice nominated for National Magazine Awards for feature writing. He is a board member of the Society of American Historians and the Author’s Guild, and he was a recent Miller Distinguished Scholar at the Santa Fe Institute. Hampton Sides was interviewed by BIO member and fellow biographer Jamie McGrath Morris.  

This week we interview Scott Shane, author of Flee North: A Forgotten Hero and the Fight for Freedom in Slavery’s Borderland. Published by Celadon Press in September 2023, Shane has written a riveting account of the life of Thomas Smallwood–the formerly enslaved man credited with naming the Underground Railroad. Shane is a veteran reporter for The Baltimore Sun and The New York Times, where he was twice a member of teams that won Pulitzer Prizes. His two previous books are Dismantling Utopia, a firsthand account of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Objective Troy, the story of an American terrorist killed in a drone strike on orders of President Obama. In 2019-2020 he was a fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, where he has taught courses on media and about the Russian attack on the 2016 American presidential election. Scott Shane was interviewed by BIO member Jenny Skoog.  

This week we interview award winning author Cynthia Carr, whose latest book, Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar, was published by Farrar Straus and Giroux in March 2024. Carr’s previous biographies include, Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz – a Lambda Literary Award winner and finalist for the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize – along with Our Town: A Heartland Lynching, a Haunted Town, and the Hidden History of White America, and On Edge: Performance at the End of the Twentieth Century. Cynthia Carr was interviewed by BIO member Jenny Skoog.

This week we interview journalist Larry Rohter, author of the biography about a brilliant Brazilian explorer. Rohter’s Into the Amazon: The Life of Cândido Rondon, Trailblazing Explorer, Scientist, Statesman, and Conservationist, was published by W. W. Norton and Company in May 2023. Rohter served as the Rio de Janeiro bureau chief for the New York Times from 1998 to 2008, and he held the same role at Newsweek from 1977 to 1982. He divides his time between the United States and Brazil. Larry Rohter was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Kevin McGruder.

This week we interview Danny Fingeroth, a veteran biographer and cultural historian/commentator who specializes in history at the intersection of Jewish and American cultures. His latest book, Jack Ruby: The Many Faces of Oswald’s Assassin, was published in November 2023 by Chicago Review Press. Fingeroth made his mark as a cultural observer with books like Superman on the Couch: What Superheroes Really Tell Us About Ourselves and Our Society and Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero. His acclaimed 2019 biography of Stan Lee, A Marvelous Life, examines this innovative Jewish-American figure—the co-creator of Marvel Comics. Danny Fingeroth was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Lisa Napoli.

This week we interview Jack Kelly, an award-winning author and historian. Kelly’s latest book, God Save Benedict Arnold: The True Story of America’s Most Hated Man, was published in December 2023 by St. Martin’s Press. Kelly’s previous fiction and nonfiction books were well received, including his Band of Giants: The Amateur Soldiers Who Won America’s Independence, which received the DAR History Medal. Kelly is a New York Foundation for the Arts nonfiction literature fellow, and he has appeared on the History Channel, National Public Radio, and C-Span. Jack Kelly was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member John A. Farrell.

This week we interview Joy-Ann Reid, host of MSNBC’s The Reid Out and a New York Times bestselling author. Reid’s latest book, Medgar and Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story That Awakened America, was published by Mariner Books in February of this year. Her previous books include the bestseller The Man Who Sold America: Trump and the Unraveling of the American Story. Reid served as the former managing editor of The Grio, and her columns have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Miami Herald, New York, and The Daily Beast. Joy-Ann Reid was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Tamara Payne. Joy-Ann Reid

This week we interview award-winning author Natalie Dykstra. Her latest biography, Chasing Beauty: The Life of Isabella Stewart Gardner, will be published by Mariner on March 26, 2024. Dykstra’s work on Stewart Gardner has won a Public Scholars Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities and an inaugural Robert and Ina Caro Research/Travel Fellowship sponsored by the Biographers International Organization. Dykstra, an emerita professor of English at Hope College in Michigan, lives with her husband in Waltham, MA. Natalie Dykstra was interviewed by BIO member Jenny Skoog.

This week we interview Nicholas L. Syrett, the author of four books and most recently, The Trials of Madame Restell: Nineteenth-Century America’s Most Infamous Female Physician and the Campaign to Make Abortion a Crime, published by The New Press in October 2023. As an associate dean and professor of women, gender, and sexuality studies at the University of Kansas, Syrett also is the co-editor of the Journal of the History of Sexuality. Nicholas Syrett was interviewed by BIO member Jenny Skoog.

This week we interview J. C. Hallman, author of Say Anarcha: A Young Woman, a Devious Surgeon, and the Harrowing Birth of Modern Women’s Health, published by Henry Holt and Company in June 2023. Hallman’s previous work on Anarcha has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, the Forum (of the African American Policy Forum), the Baffler, Montgomery Advertiser, and Urology. Hallman also has published five previous works of nonfiction and a book of short stories. In the general nonfiction category, Hallman is the recipient of fellowships from the McKnight Foundation and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. J.C. Hallman was interviewed by BIO member Jenny Skoog.

This week we interview author and theater arts professor Rachel Shteir, whose latest book, Betty Friedan: Magnificent Disruptor, was published by Yale University Press in September 2023. Friedan was the trendsetting feminist writer and activist. Shteir has written three precious books, Striptease: The Untold History of the Girlie Show; Gypsy: the Art of the Tease; and The Steal: A Cultural History of Shoplifting, along with many essays and articles, and she was the founder of the Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism Program at the Theatre School at DePaul University. Rachel Shteir was interviewed by BIO member Jenny Skoog.

This week we interview author Doug Melville, whose first biography, Invisible Generals: Rediscovering Family Legacy and a Quest to Honor America’s First Black Generals, was published by Atria/Black Privilege Press in November 2023. Invisible Generals explores the lives of Generals Benjamin O. Davis, Senior and Junior, a father and son who helped integrate the American military and created the Tuskegee Airmen. Melville is a global head of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the international luxury industry, and his family has worked under ten different American presidential administrations. Melville has delivered three TEDx Talks, and he has been featured in numerous periodicals, including Forbes, USA TODAY, The Washington Post, Time, and more. Doug Melville was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Kevin McGruder.

This week we interview Rachel Jamison Webster, professor of creative writing at Northwestern University and the author of four books of poetry and cross-genre writing. Her latest book, Benjamin Banneker and Us: Eleven Generations of an American Family, was published by Henry Holt and Company in March 2023. Webster has taught writing workshops through the National Urban League, Chicago Public Schools, Gallery 37, and the Pacific Northwest College of Art, working to bring diversity and antiracist awareness into creative writing curricula. Rachel’s essays, poems, and stories have been published in Poetry, Tin House, and the Yale Review. Rachel Jamison Webster was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Tamara Payne.

This week we interview David Waldstreicher, a history professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center and author of his latest book, The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: a Poet’s Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence, published by Farrar Strauss and Grioux in March 2023. Waldstreicher’s other books includer Slavery’s Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification, and Runaway America: Benjamin Franklin, Slavery, and the American Revolution. He also has written for The New York Times Book Review, Boston Review, and The Atlantic, among other publications. David Waldstreicher was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina.

This week we interview Tanisha C. Ford, a cultural critic, educator, and author. Her latest book, Our Secret Society: Mollie Moon, and the Glamour, Money and Power Behind the Civil Rights Movement, was published by Amistad in October 2023. Ford has written for the New York Times, the Atlantic, Time, the Root, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, and she’s been featured on NPR, among other places. She was named to the Root’s list of the 100 Most influential African Americans. Ford is also the author of Dressed in Dreams, Kwame Brathwaite: Black is Beautiful, and Liberated Threads, which won the 2016 Organization of American Historians’ Liberty Legacy Foundation Award for the best book on civil rights history. In addition, she serves as a professor of history at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York. Tanisha C. Ford was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member A’Lelia Bundles.

This week we interview Dean King whose latest book, Guardians of the Valley: John Muir and the Friendship that Saved Yosemite, was published by Scribner in March 2023. King is an award-winning author of ten nonfiction books including Skeletons on the Zahara, Unbound, Patrick O’Brian: A Life Revealed, and The Feud. His writing has appeared in Granta, Garden & Gun, National Geographic Adventure, Outside, the New York magazine, and The New York Times. He is the chief storyteller in two History Channel documentaries and a producer of its series, Hatfields & McCoys: White Lightning. King has appeared on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, ABC’s World News Tonight, PBS’s American Experience, BBC Radio, Arte TV France/Germany, and at TEDx. Dean King was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Brian Jay Jones.

This week we interview Brad Snyder, author of Democratic Justice: Felix Frankfurter, the Supreme Court, and the Making of the Liberal Establishment, published by W. W. Norton & Company in 2022. As a Georgetown University law professor, Snyder teaches constitutional law, constitutional history, and sports law. He was a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow in constitutional studies, and he is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Supreme Court History. Snyder has written three previous books including The House of Truth: A Washington Political Salon and the Foundations of American Liberalism (2017) and A Well-Paid Slave: Curt Flood’s Fight for Free Agency in Professional Sports (2006). Brad Snyder was interviewed by BIO member Jenny Skoog.

This week we interview Yunte Huang, a Guggenheim Fellow and author of Daughter of the Dragon: Anna May Wong’s Rendezvous with American History, published by Liveright in August 2023. Huang has taught at Harvard University and the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he is a professor of English. He also is the author of Inseparable and the Edgar Award–winning biography Charlie Chan. Both of those books were National Book Critics Circle Award finalists. Huang speaks frequently about American popular culture. For this episode, Yunte Huang was interviewed by BIO member Jenny Skoog.