Biographers International Organization

Happy New Year! This special episode features a fascinating presentation by the 2023 National Humanities Awardee, Tulane University history professor, television and podcast host, and celebrated biographer, Walter Issacson. His September 28, 2023, “Lessons About Living with Genius,” lecture was presented at the Leon Levy Center for Biography in the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in Manhattan. Issacson’s latest book, Elon Musk, was published in September of last year by Simon and Schuster. His previous books include, The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race (2021), Leonardo do Vinci (2017), The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution (2014), Steve Jobs (2011), Einstein: His Life and Universe (2007), Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (2003), Kissinger: A Biography (1992), and the co-written, The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (1986).

This week, we interview author Justin Martin, who specializes in meticulously researched and engagingly delivered American history books. His most recent, A Fierce Glory: Antietam, the Desperate Battle That Saved Lincoln and Doomed Slavery, was published by Da Capo Press in September 2018. This group biography is about Antietam—a turning point in the Civil War—in which Martin emphasizes character development over troop movements and portrays key figures both on and off the battlefield on that fateful day: Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, and Clara Barton. Martin was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Sonja Williams.

This week, we interview Maryemma Graham, author of the first comprehensive biography of famed poet, writer, and educator Margaret Walker. The House Where My Soul Lives: The Life of Margaret Walker was published by Oxford University Press in December 2022. A Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Kansas and Founding Director of the History of Black Writing at the University of Mississippi, Graham has published 12 books, including The Cambridge Companion to the African American Novel and, with Jerry W. Ward, The Cambridge History of African American Literature. Maryemma Graham was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Kevin McGruder.

This week, we interview Beverly Gage, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century, published by Viking in November 2022. Gage is professor of 20th-century American history at Yale and in her previous book, The Day Wall Street Exploded (Oxford University Press, 2009), she examined the history of terrorism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Gage writes frequently for the New York Times, Washington Post, New York Times Magazine, and The New Yorker, among other publications. Gage was interviewed by BIO member Jenny Skoog.

This week we interview Satvinder Juss, author of Bhagat Singh: A Life in Revolution, a biography of a charismatic Indian revolutionary, published by India Viking in December 2022. Juss serves as Professor of Law at King’s College, London; is a practicing Barrister-at-Law in London; and is a Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal in London and Birmingham, UK. He was a former Human Rights Fellow at Harvard Law School. Juss was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Kevin McGruder.

This week we interview Rachel L. Swarns, a New York University Professor of Journalism and journalist who writes about race and race relations as a contributing author to The New York Times. Her latest book, The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved and Sold to Build the Catholic Church, was published by Random House in May 2023. She also authored American Tapestry: The Story of the Black and White and Multicultural Ancestors of Michelle Obama and co-authored Unseen: Unpublished Black History from the New York Times Photo Archive. Swarns’s work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Ford Foundation, the Leon Levy Center for Biography, Biographers International Organization, and other organizations. Swarns was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Eric K. Washington.  

This week we interview Edward O’Shea, a State University of New York at Oswego Emeritus English Professor and author of Seamus Heaney’s American Odyssey. Published by Routledge Press in December 2022, this biography explores the 40 years that Irish poet Seamus Heaney spent in America. O’Shea has served as a Fulbright Fellow at Presidency College in Kolkata, India, and he was a Fulbright Specialist at Trinity College in Dublin. During that appointment, he made presentations at the Heaney “Listen Now Again” exhibition in Dublin, and at Trinity College, Queens University in Belfast. Edward O’Shea was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Kitty Kelley.  

This week we interview Mary Ann Caws, Distinguished Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature, English and French at the Graduate School of the City University of New York. In her latest book, Mina Loy: Apology of Genius, published by Reaktion Books in July 2022, Caws explores Loy’s flamboyant life and avant-garde artistry. Caws has authored several books, including The Modern Art Cookbook and Creative Gatherings: Meeting Places of Modernism, both published by Reaktion Books. Mary Ann Caws was intervened by BIO member Jenny Skoog.

This week we interview the internationally renowned cosmologist Thomas Hertog, who for many years was a close collaborator and mentee of the late Stephen Hawking. His book, On the Origin of Time: Stephen Hawking’s Final Theory, was published by Bantam in April 2023. Hertog currently serves as professor of theoretical physics at Belgium’s University of Leuven, where he studies the quantum nature of the big bang. Thomas Hertog was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member John “Jack” Farrell.  

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 publications such as the Boston Globe and the Wall Street Journal, and she has received support for her research from the National Endowment for the Humanities, among other organizations. Ilyon Woo was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Kitty Kelley.

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 Guardian, Guernica, The New Republic, The Boston Globe, and many other publications. He serves as senior fellow at Northeastern University’s Burnes Center for Social Change and holds fellowships from New America, PEN America, and Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Gayle will be interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Sonja Williams.

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) was designated a Spectator book of 2008. Fisher was interviewed by BIO member Jennifer Skoog. Wellesley Magazine, Winter 2023, Paul Fisher, April 5, 2022

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 history professor at the University of Greenwich in London and is currently an honorary professor at Swansea University. She has published a dozen books; her biographical subjects include the Welsh feminist Lady Rhondda and the American-born actor, writer, and suffragette Elizabeth Robins. John was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Lisa Napoli.

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 Jackie Robinson’s First Season (Simon & Schuster, 2007). Ken Burns has praised Eig as “a master storyteller.” His books have been listed among the best of the year by The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Sports Illustrated, and Slate. Eig was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Kevin McGruder.

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 Mark Lynton Prize in History, Massachusetts Book Award, J. Anthony Lukas Award, Fordham University’s Sperber Award, and the Peter J. Gomes Book Prize from the Massachusetts Historical Society. Her writing has appeared in the Massachusetts Historical Review, Radical History Review, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The Guardian. Greenidge is interviewed by BIO member Jennifer Skoog.

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 she specializes in modern, contemporary, and African art. She is particularly interested in artists who cross cultural boundaries. Stahr will be interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Lisa Napoli.

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 he teaches part-time at Yale and at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research in Johannesburg. Jonny Steinberg was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Sonja Williams.

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.      

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 director of NYU’s Center for Ballet and the Arts. This edited discussion was recorded on November 29, 2022, in the Leon Levy Center for Biography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. We are pleased to present this discussion with the Levy Center’s permission.  

This week we interview sports journalist and author Jeff Pearlman. His latest book, The Last Folk Hero: The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson, was published in October 2022 by Mariner Books. Pearlman has also written eight New York Times best-selling books, including Football for a Buck, The Bad Guys Won!, Boys Will Be Boys, Showtime, Sweetness, and Gunslinger. He is the host of the Two Writers Slinging Yang podcast and he blogs regularly at jeffpearlman.com. Jeff Pearlman was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Lisa Napoli.  

This week we interview E. James West, a historian and lecturer in Interdisciplinary Studies and Cultures at England’s University College of London. He also serves as co-director of the Black Press Research Collective based at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. West has authored three books, most recently Our Kind of Historian: The Work and Activism of Lerone Bennett Jr., published in July 2022 as a part of the African American Intellectual History series from the University of Massachusetts Press. His research focuses on the Black press in the United States, as well as race, media and social rights issues across the Black diaspora. E. James West was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Sonja Williams.    

This week we present the second half of our special two-part interview with Candice Millard, author of four New York Times bestsellers. Her most recent book, River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile, was published by Doubleday in May of 2022. Her previous books include The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey, and Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President, winner of the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime, the PEN Center USA award for Research Nonfiction, the One Book-One Lincoln Award, the Ohioana Award, and the Kansas Notable Book Award. Millard took home the 2017 BIO Award, and her work has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, Washington Post Book World, the Guardian, National Geographic and Time magazine. Candice Millard was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member John “Jack” A. Farrell.  

This week we present the first segment of a special two-part interview with Candice Millard, author of four New York Times bestsellers. Her most recent book, River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile, was published by in May 2022 by Doubleday. Her previous books include The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey, and Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President, winner of the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime, the PEN Center USA award for Research Nonfiction, the One Book-One Lincoln Award, the Ohioana Award, and the Kansas Notable Book Award. Millard took home the 2017 BIO Award, and her work has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, Washington Post Book World, the Guardian, National Geographic and Time magazine. Candice Millard was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member John “Jack” A. Farrell.  

This week we interview Aidan Levy whose latest book, Saxophone Colossus: The Life and Music of Sonny Rollins, was published in December 2022 by Hachette Books. Levy also authored, Dirty Blvd.: The Life and Music of Lou Reed, and he edited Patti Smith on Patti Smith: Interviews and Encounters. A former Leon Levy Center for Biography Fellow, his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Village Voice, JazzTimes, and The Nation. Aiden Levy was interviewed by BIO member Jennifer Skoog.    

This week we interview Chad Williams, the Samuel J. and Augusta Spector Professor of History and African and African American Studies at Brandeis University. His latest book, The Wounded World: W. E. B. Du Bois and the First World War, was published in April 2023 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Williams specializes in African American and modern US History, African American military history, the World War I era and African American intellectual history. Also, he authored the award-winning book, Torchbearers of Democracy: African American Soldiers in the World War I Era, and co-editor of Charleston Syllabus: Readings on Race, Racism and Racial Violence and Major Problems in African American History, Second Edition. Chad Williams was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Sonja Williams (no relation).  

This week we feature the second segment of a special two-part interview featuring award-winning biographer, Stacy Schiff. Her latest book, The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams, was published by Little, Brown and Company in October 2022. Schiff is the author of several best-selling and acclaimed biographies, including gripping examinations of Cleopatra, the Witches of Salem and her Pulitzer Prize winning study of Vera Nabokov. Schiff is a Guggenheim, NEH and New York Public Library Cullman Center Fellow, and the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award in History and Biography from the New England Historic Genealogical Society. She has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, among several other publications. Stacy Schiff was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member John “Jack” A. Farrell.  

This week we feature the first segment of a special two-part interview with award-winning biographer, Stacy Schiff. Her latest book, The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams, was published by Little, Brown, and Company in October 2022. Schiff is the author of several best-selling biographies, including compelling examinations of Cleopatra, the Witches of Salem and her Pulitzer Prize winning study of Vera Nabokov. Schiff is a Guggenheim, NEH and New York Public Library Cullman Center Fellow, and the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award in History and Biography from the New England Historic Genealogical Society. She has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, and several other publications. Stacy Schiff was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member John “Jack” A. Farrell.

This week we interview Ashley Brown, assistant history professor and the Allan H. Selig Chair in Sport and Society in U.S. History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her biography, Serving Herself: The Life and Times of Althea Gibson, was published in February 2023 by Oxford University Press. Gibson was the first African American to compete and win championship titles at Wimbledon, as well at the United States, French, and Australian Opens. She was also the first Black woman to compete in the Ladies Professional Golf Association Tour. Brown’s article about American women and sports diplomacy was honored by the North American Society for Sport History and published in the Journal of Sport History. The Journal of African American History also published her scholarship. Ashley Brown was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Sonja Williams.  

This week we interview RJ Smith, author of Chuck Berry: An American Life, published in November 2022 by Hachette Books. Smith is a senior editor at Los Angeles Magazine, a contributor to Details, a columnist for The Village Voice and a staff writer for Spin. He also has written for GQ, New York Times Magazine, Elle, and Men’s Vogue. His book The One: The Life and Music of James Brown was among the New York Times‘ “100 Notable Books of 2012.” RJ Smith was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Kevin McGruder.  

This special episode features excerpts from a conversation between award-winning journalist and author Andrew Meier and fellow biographer and BIO member Kai Bird. Meier’s latest book, Morgenthau: Power, Privilege, and the Rise of an American Dynasty, was published in October 2022 by Random House, and it’s a comprehensive examination of one of New York’s most influential families. This live, in-person discussion was recorded on October 11, 2022, in Manhattan, and sponsored by the Leon Levy Center for Biography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. We are pleased to present this discussion with the Levy Center’s permission. Author photo credit: Brigitte Lacombe

This week we interview Helen Rappaport, the British author of sixteen highly regarded biographies. Her latest book, In Search of Mary Seacole: The Making of a Black Cultural Icon and Humanitarian, was published by Pegasus Books in September 2022. Rappaport has been a full-time historian and writer for more than twenty-three years, and in 2003 she discovered and purchased an 1869 portrait of Mary Seacole. The painting now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery and it served as the spark for her investigation into Seacole’s life and career. Rappaport’s previous books includes the biographies, The Romanov Sisters and The Last Days of the Romanovs. Helen Rappaport was interviewed by BIO member Jennifer Skoog.   Author photo credit: Mary Zacaroli

This week we interview Andrew Nagorski, an award-winning journalist and author of Saving Freud: The Rescuers Who Brought Him to Freedom, published by Simon and Schuster in August 2022. Nagorski spent more than three decades as a foreign correspondent and editor for Newsweek, and he is the author of eight books, including Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power and The Nazi Hunters. Nagorski gained international notoriety when the Soviet government, angered by his enterprising reporting, expelled him from the country. Andrew Nagorski was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Kitty Kelley.   Author photo credit: Milo Davis

This week we interview Lydia Moland, professor of philosophy at Colby College and author of Lydia Maria Child: A Radical American Life, published by in the University of Chicago Press in October 2022. This biography explores the life of one of the nineteenth century’s most courageous abolitionists. Moland’s work on Lydia Maria Child has appeared in the Paris Review, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, the American Scholar, and on National Public Radio. And her scholarship in German philosophy, including Hegel’s Aesthetics: The Art of Idealism, has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the ACLS, and the American Academy in Berlin. Lydia Moland was interviewed by BIO member Jennifer Skoog.

This week we interview Daphne Palmer Geanacopoulos, a historian, journalist, and author of The Pirate’s Wife: The Remarkable True Story of Sarah Kidd. It was published by Hanover Square Press, an imprint of HarperCollins, in November 2022. She is also the author of The Pirate Next Door: The Untold Story of Eighteenth-Century Pirates’ Wives, Families and Communities, published by Carolina Academic Press, and her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Southern Living, Virginia Business, and other outlets. Geanacopoulos was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Lisa Napoli.

This week we interview Hilary A. Hallett, the Mendelson Family Professor, Director of American Studies, and Associate Professor of History at Columbia University. Her latest book is Inventing The Hollywood It Girl: How Elinor Glyn Created the Modern Romance and Conquered Early Hollywood, published by Liveright, in July 2022. Hallett is also the author of Go West, Young Women! The Rise of Early Hollywood, and she has written for the Los Angeles Times. Hallett was interviewed by BIO member Jennifer Skoog.

This week we interview writer, editor, and former journalist in the Washington, D.C. area, Diana P. Parsell. Her biography, Eliza Scidmore: The Trailblazing Journalist Behind Washington’s Cherry Trees, was published this month by Oxford University Press. It’s been praised by advance reviewers for its many revelations about a pioneering American woman who brought the world alive for readers a century ago. In support of the book, Parsell’s first biography, she received a Mayborn Fellowship in Biography and BIO’s Hazel Rowley Prize in. Diana P. Parsell was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Lisa Napoli.

This week we interview Neil Baldwin, an author whose critically acclaimed biographies include examinations of William Carlos Williams, Man Ray, Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford. His current biography, Martha Graham: When Dance Became Modern, was published by Knopf, in October 2022. Baldwin has served as manager of The Annual Fund at The New York Public Library and was the founding executive director of The National Book Foundation. He is also a Emeritus Distinguished Visiting Professor of History in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor of Theatre and Dance in the College of the Arts at Montclair State University; and Critic-in-Residence at The Blended Campus. Baldwin will be interviewed by BIO member Jennifer Skoog.  

This week we interview Lerita Coleman Brown, author of What Makes You Come Alive: A Spiritual Walk with Howard Thurman, published this month by Broadleaf Books. A Distinguished Professor Emerita of Psychology at Agnes Scott College, Brown is a spiritual director/companion, writer, retreat leader, and speaker. She has appeared in the documentaries Back Against the Wall: The Howard Thurman Story and The Black Church, as well as on several podcasts. Her earlier book, When the Heart Speaks, Listen: Discovering Inner Wisdom, was published in 2019. Lerita Coleman Brown was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Kevin McGruder.  

This week we interview co-authors Marilyn S. Greenwald and Yun Li about their book, Eunice Hunton Carter: A Lifelong Fight for Social Justice, published by Empire State Editions, in April 2021. Greenwald is Professor Emerita of Journalism at Ohio University and a former Ohio-based newspaper reporter. She has authored five biographies including: A Woman of the Times: Journalism, Feminism and the Career of Charlotte Curtis (designated a “Notable Book” by The New York Times) and The Secret of the Hardy Boys: Leslie McFarlane and the Stratemeyer Syndicate, about the first author of the Hardy Boys book series. Yun Li is a CNBC financial news reporter, whose reporting has appeared in Reuters, Bloomberg News, and other outlets. Greenwald and Yun Li are interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Lisa Napoli.  

This week we interview journalist Kostya Kennedy, author of True: The Four Seasons of Jackie Robinson, published by St. Martin’s Press, in April 2022. Kennedy is an editorial director at Dotdash Meredith and a former senior writer at Sports Illustrated. He is also the New York Times–bestselling author of 56: Joe DiMaggio and the Last Magic Number in Sports (a runner–up for the 2012 PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing) and Pete Rose: An American Dilemma. Both won the Casey Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year. Kennedy was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Kevin McGruder.    

This week we interview Wanda A. Hendricks, Distinguished Professor Emerita at the University of South Carolina and author of The Life of Madie Hall Xuma: Black Women’s Global Activism During Jim Crow and Apartheid, published by the University of Illinois Press (UIP) in October 2022. Hendricks has served as the National Director of the Association of Black Women Historians, and senior editor of the three-volume Black Women In America: Second Edition, published by Oxford University Press. She currently is an editor for the UIP’s Women, Gender, and Sexuality in American History series, and her other books include Gender, Race, and Politics in the Midwest: Black Club Women in Illinois and the first biography of Black activist and intellectual Fannie Barrier Williams. Wanda Hendricks was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Sonja Williams.    

This special episode features excerpts from a spirited conversation between USA Today Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page and fellow award-winning biographer and BIO member John “Jack” Farrell. His latest book, Ted Kennedy: A Life, is a fascinating exploration of the life and times of the former icon of the Senate and Kennedy family member, and it was published by Penguin Press in October 2022. This live, in-person interview was recorded on November 15, 2022, and sponsored by the Public Programs Department of the Manhattan-based New-York Historical Society. We are pleased to present this discussion with the Society’s permission.  

This time we interview Susan Page, an award-winning journalist and USA Today’s Washington Bureau Chief. Page has written biographies of the influential former House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former first lady Barbara Bush. Currently, Page is working on a biography of Barbara Walters—the iconic broadcast journalist who passed away in December 2022. Susan Page’s biography of Walters will be published by Simon & Schuster either by the end of this year or the beginning of 2024. Page was interviewed for this episode by fellow biographer and BIO member John “Jack” Farrell. Credit: Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY Sports

This week we feature a special episode with BIO’s 2022 Plutarch Award-winner Frances Wilson. Her latest book, Burning Man: The Trials of D. H. Lawrence, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, is considered to be an electrifying and revelatory new biography of the English writer. Wilson, a London-based critic, journalist, and author of several award-winning nonfiction works, was interviewed by Nigel Hamilton, a British-born, American-based biographer, academic, and broadcaster. He is the author of numerous biographies, including three volumes on the life and times of Franklin D. Roosevelt, a two-volume examination of Winston Churchill, and a best-selling exploration of a young John F. Kennedy. A former BIO president and chair of BIO’s 2022 Plutarch Award Committee, Nigel Hamilton interviewed Frances Wilson during BIO’s virtual Book Club meeting on September 17, 2022.

Happy New Year! We’re pleased to start this year with a special episode featuring Pulitzer Prize Award-winning biographer Megan Marshall. During BIO’s virtual conference last year, Marshall received our organization’s highest honor: the BIO Award. Each year this award recognizes outstanding authors for their contributions to the art and craft of biography. Megan Marshall accepted the award with a speech recorded at the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston. She was introduced by fellow biographer and BIO member Natalie Dykstra on May 14, 2022.

This week we interview Gene Andrew Jarrett, Dean of the Faculty and William S. Tod Professor of English at Princeton University. His latest book, Paul Laurence Dunbar: The Life and Times of a Caged Bird, published in October 2022 by Princeton University Press, examines the Gilded Age writer known as the poet laureate of his race. Jarrett also authored Representing the Race: A New Political History of African American Literature and Deans and Truants: Race and Realism in African American Literature, and he co-edited The Collected Novels of Paul Laurence Dunbar and The Complete Stories of Paul Laurence Dunbar. Gene Andrew Jarrett was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Kevin McGruder.  

This week we interview Iris Jamahl Dunkle, the former Poet Laureate of Sonoma County, California, and an award-winning author. Dunkle’s biography about the artist and wife of famed writer Jack London, titled, Charmian Kittredge London: Trailblazer, Author, Adventurer, was published by the University of Oklahoma Press in September 2020. Iris Jamahl Dunkle has authored four poetry collections, including, West : Fire : Archive, and she was interviewed by BIO member Jenny Skoog.  

This week we interview Anastasia Curwood, Professor of History at the University of Kentucky and author of Shirley Chisholm: Champion of Black Feminist Power Politics, scheduled for publication by the University of North Carolina Press in January 2023. Curwood has received fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Institute for Citizens and Scholars, and the James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference at Emory University. Her first book, Stormy Weather: Middle-Class African American Marriages Between the Two World Wars, explored African American marriages during the early twentieth century. Anastasia Curwood was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Sonja Williams.  

This week we interview Winston James, author of Claude McKay: The Making of a Black Bolshevik, published by Columbia University Press in July 2022. A Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine, James also authored, Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia: Caribbean Radicalism in Early Twentieth-Century America, winner of the Gordon K. Lewis Memorial Award for Caribbean Scholarship from the Caribbean Studies Association. His three other books examined pioneering Pan-Africanist writer John Brown Russwurm, the poetry of Claude McKay, and Britain’s Caribbean diaspora. Winston James was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Kitty Kelley.  

This week we interview Mark Clague, author of O Say Can You Hear: A Cultural Biography of The Star-Spangled Banner, published by W.W. Norton & Company in June 2022. Clague serves as Professor of Musicology, Arts Leadership, and American Culture at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance, where he also serves as an associate dean. His other anthem-related publications include the recording Poets & Patriots: A Tuneful History of The Star-Spangled Banner and the Star-Spangled Songbook. Clague’s research has sparked collaborations with the Smithsonian Museum of American History, Los Angeles Grammy Museum, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, and a Library of Congress recital with baritone Thomas Hampson. Mark Clague was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Sonja Williams.