Biographers International Organization

This week we interview Allison Gilbert, an award-winning journalist and co-author (with writer Julia Scheeres) of Listen, World!: How the Intrepid Elsie Robinson Became America’s Most-Read Woman. Published by Seal Press in September 2022, this biography of William Randolph Hearst’s highest-paid woman writer has been called “broadminded, sharp-witted, fast-paced, and funny” by Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Debby Applegate. Gilbert has authored three books on grief and loss: Passed and Present, Always Too Soon, and Parentless Parents. Allison Gilbert was interviewed by BIO member Jenny Skoog.  

This week we interview Soyica Diggs Colbert, the Idol Family Professor of African American Studies and Performing Arts at Georgetown University. Her book, Radical Vision: A Biography of Lorraine Hansberry, published by Yale University Press in April 2021, was described in the New York Times as a captivating portrait of writer Lorraine Hansberry’s life, art, and political activism. Diggs Colbert’s writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Public Books, Metrograph, and American Theatre, and she has been featured on media outlets like NPR, USA Today, and CNN. Soyica Diggs Colbert was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Kevin McGruder.

This week we interview E. Stanly Godbold, author of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter: Power and Human Rights, 1975–2020. This dual biography of President Carter and his wife Rosalynn was published by Oxford University Press in September 2022. The first volume of Godbold’s extensive examination of the Carters, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter: The Georgia Years, 1924–1974, was also published by Oxford University Press. Godbold is Professor Emeritus of History at Mississippi State University, and he served as a consultant and commentator for the PBS American Experience documentary about Jimmy Carter. E. Stanly Godbold was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Lisa Napoli.

This week we interview Bernice Lerner, a senior scholar at Boston University’s Center for Character and Social Responsibility. Her latest book is a dual biography of a high-ranking British military doctor during World War II, and Lerner’s mother, Rachel Genuth, a poor Jewish teenager from the Hungarian provinces and Holocaust survivor. The book, All the Horrors of War: A Jewish Girl, a British Doctor, and the Liberation of Bergen-Belsen, was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in April 2020. Lerner also authored The Triumph of Wounded Souls: Seven Holocaust Survivors’ Lives. Bernice Lerner was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Kitty Kelley.

This week we interview Li Shan Chan, a Singaporean writer, mental health advocate, and doctoral student at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, who was awarded the Biography Prize by Honolulu’s Center for Biographical Research. Her latest book, Searching for Lee Wen: A Life in 135 Parts, about a unique Singaporean Chinese artist, was published by Epigram Books in May 2022. Her previous books include Yellow Man and her memoir, A Philosopher’s Madness. Chan’s writings have appeared in The Straits Times and Grey Projects, and she served as director of the Writing Center at the Asian University for Women in Bangladesh, where she also held a Writing Residency Fellowship. Li Shan Chan was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Lisa Napoli.

This week we interview Marko Perko, a veteran writer and the co-author (with psychiatrist Stephen M. Stahl) of Tesla: His Tremendous and Troubled Life. This biography of Nikola Tesla—the Serbian American engineer who helped to create our modern world with his wide-ranging inventions, discoveries, and patents, including alternating current (AC)—was published by Prometheus Books in May 2022. Perko has written for and edited numerous publications, and he has worked as a columnist, speechwriter, composer, musician, lecturer, and playwright. He is a member of the Authors Guild, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, Broadcast Music, Inc., the Organization of American Historians, the British Library, and the Institution of Engineering and Technology. Marko Perko was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Sonja Williams.

This week we interview Etta Madden, author of Engaging Italy: American Women’s Utopian Visions and International Networks. Published by the State University of New York Press in April 2022, this book focuses on three little known Americans—Caroline Crane Marsh, Anne Hampton Brewster, and Emily Bliss Gould—whose lives intersected in an evolving Italy during the mid-19th century. Madden is the author of three additional books that explore American writers, utopian literature, and intentional communities. A professor of English at Missouri State University, she is also the recipient of a Fulbright Award and two Mellon Fellowships. Etta Madden was interviewed by BIO member Jennifer Skoog.

This week we interview Justin Tinsley, a senior sports and culture reporter for ESPN’s “The Undefeated.” He has written commentaries and feature stories about people as varied as Marvin Gaye, Malcolm X, James Baldwin, Serena Williams, Cardi B, and Kendrick Lamar. Tinsley is also a regular presence on ESPN’s daily sports talk show, “Around the Horn.” And, he is the host of the “30 for 30” podcast, “The King of Crenshaw,” which explores the legacy of the late rapper and activist Nipsey Hussle. Justin Tinsley’s first biography, It Was All a Dream: Biggie and the World That Made Him, was published by Abrams Press in May 2022. He was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Kevin McGruder.

This week we interview Betsy Smoot, an intelligence historian interested in early twentieth-century cryptology and communications. She retired from the Center for Cryptologic History of the National Security Agency in 2017, and she has published articles in Cryptologia and Intelligence and National Security. Her book, Parker Hitt: The Father of American Military Crytology, was published by the University Press of Kentucky in March 2022. Betsy Smoot was interviewed by fellow BIO member Jennifer Skoog.

This week we interview Gwendolyn Mink and Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, co-authors of Fierce and Fearless: Patsy Takemoto Mink, First Woman of Color in Congress, published by New York University Press in May 2022. This book explores the life and accomplishments of Patsy Mink, the first Asian American woman elected to U.S. House of Representatives, and a dedicated advocate for Title IX legislation and opposition to the Vietnam War. Gwendolyn Mink, Patsy Mink daughter’s, has authored and edited several scholarly books and served as Professor of Politics at the University of California, Santa Cruz and Professor of Women and Gender Studies at Smith College. Co-author Judy Tzu-Chun Wu is Professor of Asian American Studies and the Director of the Humanities Center at the University of California, Irvine. She also is the author of Doctor Mom Chung of the Fair-Haired Bastards: The Life of a Wartime Celebrity and Radicals on the Road: Internationalism, Orientalism, and Feminism during the Vietnam Era. Mink and Wu were interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Kitty Kelley.   Judy Tzu-Chun Wu Gwendolyn Mink :

This week we interview Toluse Olorunnipa and Robert Samuels, Peabody Award and Polk Award-winning journalists and co-authors of His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice, published by Viking Press in May 2022. Toluse Olorunnipa is a political enterprise and investigations reporter for The Washington Post. He joined the Post in 2019 and previously covered the White House. Before that, Olorunnipa spent five years at Bloomberg, where he reported on politics and policy from Washington and Florida. Robert Samuels is a national political enterprise reporter for The Washington Post who focuses on the intersection of politics, policy, and people. He previously wrote stories about life in the District for the Post’s social issues team. Samuels joined the Post in 2011 after spending nearly five years working at the Miami Herald. Olorunnipa and Samuels were interviewed by BIO member Jennifer Skoog.     Bloomberg News Reporter Touluse Olorunipa photographed at Bloomberg’s Washington DC news bureau on June 27, 2017. Photographer: Lori Hoffman for Bloomberg. Robert Samuels    

This week we interview Philip Short, a British journalist who has written several definitive biographies, including Mao: A Life and Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare. Short has had a long career as a foreign correspondent in Moscow, Beijing, and Washington, D.C., working for the BBC, the Economist, and the Times of London. Short’s latest biography is, Putin, published by Henry Holt & Company in July 2022. It examines the life of Russia’s controversial President Vladimir Putin. Philip Short was interviewed via Zoom by fellow journalist and BIO member John “Jack” Farrell.   Photo credit: Bob Swaim    

This week we interview award winning writer Mark Lee Gardner. His latest biography, The Earth is All That Lasts: Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and the Last Stand of the Great Sioux Nation, was published by Mariner Books in June 2022.Gardner’s previous books, Rough Riders, To Hell on a Fast Horse and Shot All to Hell, received multiple honors, including a Spur Award from Western Writers of America. An authority on the American West, Gardner has appeared on PBS’s American Experience, the History and the Travel Channels, AMC and NPR. He has written for National Geographic History, American Heritage, the Los Angeles Times, True West, and American Cowboy. Mark Gardner was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Sonja Williams.  

This week we interview Paulina L. Alberto, an Argentine-born historian of Afro-Latin America and Professor of History, Spanish, and Portuguese at the University of Michigan. Her biography, Black Legend: The Many Lives of Raúl Grigera and the Power of Racial Storytelling in Modern Argentina, was published by Cambridge University Press in January 2022. As the author of Terms of Inclusion: Black Intellectuals in Twentieth-Century Brazil, she received the Roberto Reis Prize for Best Book in Brazilian Studies and the Warren Dean Prize for Best Book in Brazilian History, along with the James Alexander Robertson Prize for best article in the Hispanic American Historical Review. Paulina Alberto was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Kitty Kelley.  

This week we interview award-winning author and Brigham Young University music professor Brian Harker. His latest biography, Sportin’ Life: John W. Bubbles an American Classic, was published by Oxford University Press in January 2022. John Bubbles was one of the jazz world’s most singular and elusive architects. Harker also explored jazz music in his previous books, Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings and Jazz: An American Journey. Brian Harker was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member and Eric K. Washington.    

This week we interview Kathleen Stone, a Boston-based lawyer whose reviews, essays and have appeared in MS Magazine, Arts Fuse, Ploughshares, Pangyrus, The Timberline Review, Los Angeles Review of Books and Grist. She also co-hosts Booklab, a literary salon in Boston. Stone’s biography, her first, explores the lives of seven remarkable women from a wide range of backgrounds. They Called Us Girls: Stories of Female Ambition from Suffrage to Mad Men, was published in March 2022 by Cynren Press. She was interviewed during an online Zoom session in February of this year by fellow biographer and BIO member Kitty Kelley.    

This week we offer the second part of two special episodes featuring David Maraniss, the veteran journalist and author of 13 highly regarded books. His latest book, Path Lit By Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe, will be published by Simon and Schuster in August 2022. Maraniss is a New York Times bestselling author, associate editor at The Washington Post and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner. In addition, his reporting and writing has earned him such honors as the George Polk Award, Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, Anthony Lukas Book Prize and the Frankfurt eBook Award. David Maraniss was interviewed on October 13, 2021, via an online Zoom session, by fellow biographer and BIO member John “Jack” Farrell.    

This week we offer the first of two special episodes featuring David Maraniss, the veteran journalist and author of 13 highly regarded books. His latest book, Path Lit By Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe, will be published by Simon & Schuster in August 2022. Maraniss is a New York Times bestselling author and associate editor at The Washington Post. In 1992 he won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on then presidential candidate Bill Clinton…and he was a member of The Washington Post team that won a 2007 Pulitzer for their coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting. His writing has earned such notable honors as the George Polk Award, Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, Anthony Lukas Book Prize and the Frankfurt eBook Award. David Maraniss was interviewed on October 13, 2021, via an online Zoom session, by fellow biographer and BIO member John “Jack” Farrell.    

This week we interview Tomiko Brown-Nagin, author of Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality, published by Pantheon in January 2022. Brown-Nagin serves as Dean of Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School, and Professor of History at Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. In 2019, she was appointed chair of the Presidential Committee on Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery. Her previous book, Courage to Dissent, won the Bancroft Prize in 2011. Tomiko Brown-Nagin was interviewed on February 9, 2022, via an online Zoom session, by fellow biographer and BIO member Kevin McGruder. Photo credit: Jessica Scranton  

This week we interview John Markoff, a Pulitzer Prize winning, veteran science and technology journalist for The New York Times, the Pacific News Service, InfoWorld, Byte Magazine, and The San Jose Mercury. Markoff also has shared his journalistic skills as a lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley School of Journalism, and as an adjunct faculty member of the Stanford Graduate Program on Journalism. His latest biography about a man revered by Steve Jobs and other Silicon Valley innovators is called, Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand, published by Penguin Press in March 2022. John Markoff was interviewed via an online Zoom session on January 25th of this year, by fellow biographer and BIO member Lisa Napoli. Photo credit: Leslie Terzian Markoff  

This week we interview Alejandro Madrid, an award-winning Cornell University musicologist who specializes in music and expressive culture from Latin America and Latinxs in the United States. He has authored more than a half dozen books, including his latest, Tania Léon’s Stride. A Polyrhythmic Life, published by the University of Illinois Press in December 2021. Tania Léon, now in her late 70s, is a sought-after composer, conductor, educator, and tireless advocate for the arts. Last year she was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for her composition, Stride, Léon’s orchestral tribute to the 19th Amendment that granted women the right to vote. Alejandro Madrid was interviewed, online via Zoom on February 9, 2022, by fellow biographer and BIO member Sonja Williams.  

This week we interview Paulina Bren, an award-winning writer and Vassar College historian. Her latest book, The Barbizon: The Hotel That Set Women Free is a New York Times Editor’s Choice. The Barbizon has received international press coverage and it has been optioned by HBO and Game of Thrones’ Emilia Clarke. Foreign rights have been sold to Italy, Spain, Hungary, South America, China, Russia and South Korea. Paulina Bren is a well-known scholar of everyday life and communism behind the Iron Curtain, starting with her groundbreaking book, The Greengrocer and His TV. For this BIO episode, Paulina Bren was interviewed online, via Zoom, on November 5, 2021 by BIO member Kitty Kelley.  

This week we interview Sheena Harris, a Woodburn Associate Professor of history and coordinator of the Africana Studies Program at West Virginia University. Previously, she served as an Associate Professor of history and the Inaugural Director of Student Engagement Initiatives at Tuskegee University. She is a first-time biographer and author of Margaret Murray Washington: The Life and Times of a Career Clubwoman, published by the University of Tennessee Press in February 2021. A powerful leader in the Black women’s club movement, Margaret Murray Washington was the wife of legendary educator and Tuskegee University founder, Booker T. Washington. Sheena Harris was interviewed on January 21, 2022, via an online Zoom session, by fellow biographer and BIO member Kevin McGruder.  

This week we interview Tyrone McKinley Freeman, an award-winning associate professor of Philanthropic Studies and director of undergraduate programs at Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. His latest book, Madam C.J. Walker’s Gospel of Giving: Black Women’s Philanthropy During Jim Crow, was published by the University of Illinois Press in September 2020. His work has appeared or been cited in the New York Times, O: The Oprah Magazine, TIME, Harvard Business Review, Stanford Social Innovation Review, News One, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, CASE Currents, and Advancing Philanthropy. Tyrone McKinley Freeman was interviewed online, via Zoom, on November 22, 2021, by fellow biographer and BIO member Sonja Williams.  

This week we interview biographer and historian, Debby Applegate. Her first book, The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher, won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Book Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. This book also was named one of the best books of the year by the New York Times Book Review, NPR’s Fresh Air, the Washington Post, Seattle Times, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle and American Heritage Magazine. Her current book, Madam: A Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age, was published by Doubleday in November 2021. Debby Applegate was interviewed online, via Zoom, on October 29, 2021 by fellow biographer and BIO member John “Jack” Farrell.  

Happy New Year! This week we interview Gary Ginsberg, author of The New York Times bestseller, First Friends: The Powerful, Unsung (and Unelected) People Who Shaped Out Presidents, published by Twelve in July 2021. The book explores nine select American presidents (Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Pierce, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton) and the relationships they had with their best friends. A lawyer by training, Ginsberg worked for the Clinton administration, served as a senior editor and counsel at the political magazine, George, and held executive positions at the News Corporation, Time Warner and SoftBank. He has published pieces in The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and he was as an on-air political contributor during the early days of MSNBC. Gary Ginsberg was interviewed online, via Zoom, on October 12, 2021 by fellow biographer and BIO member Kitty Kelley.  

This week we offer the next episode in a special mini-series featuring highlights from panel discussions conducted during BIO’s first virtual annual conference, held May 14-16, 2021. The session, Writing the First Biography of Your Subject, featured biographers Justin Gifford (Revolution or Death: The Life of Eldridge Cleaver), Abigail Santamaria (Joy: Poet, Seeker, and the Woman Who Captivated C. S. Lewis) and Carol Sklenicka (Alice Adams: Portrait of a Writer). The panel was moderated by author and BIO member Debby Applegate (Madam: The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age).  

This week we offer the next episode in a special mini-series featuring highlights from panel discussions conducted during BIO’s first virtual annual conference, held May 14-16, 2021. The session, The Art and Technology of Interviewing, featured authors John Brady (The Art of Interviewing), Claudia Dreifus (Interview; The New York Times’ Scientific Conversations: Interviews on Science) and Brian Jay Jones (Becoming Dr. Seuss: Theodor Geisel and the Making of an American Imagination). The panel was moderated by author & BIO member James McGrath Morris (Tony Hillerman: A Life).    

This week we offer the next episode in a special mini-series featuring highlights from panel discussions conducted during BIO’s first virtual annual conference, held May 14-16, 2021. The session, “How to Pay For It, Or Funding Your Biography,” featured biographer Carla Kaplan (Miss Anne in Harlem: The White Women of the Black Renaissance), Steve Hindle of California’s Huntington Library, and Mark Silver of the National Endowment for the Humanties. The panel was moderated by author and BIO member Heath Hardage Lee (The League of Women: The Untold Story of the Women Who Took on the U.S. Government to Bring Their Husbands Home).    

This week we offer the next episode in a special mini-series featuring highlights from panel discussions conducted during BIO’s first virtual annual conference, held May 14-16, 2021. The session, “Researching Under-Documented Lives, featured biographers Gaiutra Bahadur (Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture), Channing Gerald Joseph and Pamela Newkirk (Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga), The panel was moderated by author and BIO member Kavita Das (Poignant Song: The Life and Music of Lakshmi Shankar).    

This week we offer the first in a mini-series of special episodes featuring highlights from panel discussions conducted during BIO’s first virtual annual conference, held May 14-16, 2021. The session, Swipe Right for your Subject: How Do You Know It’s the Right One?, featured biographer Mary V. Dearborn (Ernest Hemingway: A Biography), long time book editor Gerald Howard and biographer Eric K. Washington (Boss of the Grips: The Life of James H. Williams and the Red Caps of Grand Central Terminal). The panel was moderated by author and BIO member Gayle Feldman.    

This week we interview veteran Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist and writer, Daniel de Visé. Exploring the life and times of a legendary guitarist and singer, his latest biography, King of the Blues, The Rise and Reign of B.B. King, was published by Grove Press in October 2021. De Visé’s previous books include biographies of actors Andy Griffin and Don Knotts (Andy & Don, Simon & Schuster), as well as professional cyclist and Congressional Gold Medal recipient Greg LeMond (The Comeback, Grove Atlantic). Daniel de Visé was interviewed on October 1, 2021 via Zoom by BIO member and fellow biographer John “Jack” Farrell. Author photo credit: John M.W. King  

In this week’s episode, we interview David Hajdu and John Carey, collaborators on a biography in graphic form about three vaudeville stars. A Revolution in Three Acts: The Radical Vaudeville of Bert Williams, Eva Tanguay and Julian Eltinge was published Columbia University Press in September 2021. David Hajdu is a biographer, cultural historian, novelist, and songwriter. His previous biographies include Lush Life, Positively 4th Street and Adrianne Geffel, and he teaches at the Columbia University Journalism School. John Carey is a painter who served as the editorial cartoonist for Greater Media Newspapers for many years. Hajdu and Carey were interviewed via Zoom by BIO member Eric K. Washington on September 29, 2021. Author photo credit: Takato Harkness  

In this week’s episode we interview Ty Seidule, author of Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause, published by St. Martin’s Press in January 2021. Seidule served in the U.S. Army for thirty-six years, retiring as a brigadier general in 2020. Also, he is a Professor Emeritus of History at West Point, where he taught for two decades. Seidule is a New America Fellow, as well as the Chamberlain Fellow at Hamilton College in upstate New York, and he currently serves as Vice Chair of the Department of Defense’s National Commission on Base Renaming. He was interviewed on September 27, 2021 via an online Zoom session with veteran biographer and BIO member Kitty Kelley.  

In this week’s episode, we interview Kevin McGruder, Associate Professor of history at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He is a first-time biographer and author of Philip Payton: The Father of Black Harlem, published by Columbia University Press in July 2021. During the 1990s, Kevin McGruder served as the director of real estate development for the Abyssinian Development Corporation, a nonprofit church-based organization in Harlem, and he wrote a book about race and real estate in Harlem. McGruder was interviewed on September 22, 2021 via an online Zoom session conducted by fellow BIO member and author Eric K. Washington.  

In this week’s episode, we interview journalist Molly Ball, author of The New York Times bestseller Pelosi, a biography of the first woman to serve as the U.S. Congress’ Speaker of the House. Pelosi was published in May 2020 by Henry Holt. Molly Ball is Time magazine’s national political correspondent and a frequent television and radio commentator. She has received numerous awards for her political coverage, including the Dirksen Award for Distinguished Reporting of Congress, the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency and the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting. From her home in Washington, DC, Ball was interviewed on September 24, 2021 via Zoom, by fellow biographer and BIO member John “Jack” Farrell.  

In this week’s episode we interview Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina, Professor of Biography and English at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Working with 19 other authors, her book of edited biographies, Britain’s Black Past, was published by Liverpool University Press in March 2020. She also has published nine other books, including Carrington: A Life; Black London: Life Before Emancipation; Frances Hodgson Burnett: The Unexpected Life of the Author of The Secret Garden; and Mr. and Mrs. Price: How an Extraordinary Eighteenth-Century Family Moved Out of Slavery and into Legend. Gretchen Gerzina was interviewed, via Zoom, on July 14, 2021, by writer and BIO member Sonja Williams.

In this week’s episode, we interview Tamara Payne. Working with her late father, the award-winning and New York-based print journalist Les Payne, Tamara Payne co-wrote The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X. Published in October 2020 by Liveright, this biography of the charismatic and controversial Muslim leader known as Malcolm X earned a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award. Tamara Payne was interviewed in her home in New York City on July 16, 2021, by writer and BIO member Sonja Williams.

In this week’s episode, we interview Dinyar Patel, history professor at the S. B. Jain Institute of Management and Research in Mumbai, India, and the author of Naoroji: Pioneer of Indian Nationalism, published in May 2020 by Harvard University Press. Dinyar Patel was interviewed in his Mumbai home on July 15, 2021, via Zoom by writer and BIO member Sonja Williams.

Annette Gordon-Reed is the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University. She also is the author of several acclaimed books, including The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award for Nonfiction, and the Anisfield-Wolf Nonfiction Book Award. Gordon-Reed lives in New York and Cambridge, and her latest book, On Juneteenth, was published by Liveright in May 2021.   Photo by Tony Rinaldo

In this week’s episode, we interview Stephen Budiansky, a veteran historian, biographer, and journalist who has published 15 books, including his current biography, Journey to the Edge of Reason: The Life of Kurt Gödel, published by W.W. Norton & Company in May 2021. His writing also has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, and he is a Guggenheim Fellow. Budiansky was interviewed in his Loudoun County, Virginia, home via Zoom on July 8, 2021, by BIO member Sonja Williams.   Photo by Martha Polkey

In this week’s episode, we interview Kerri Greenidge, author of Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter, published November 19, 2019, by Liveright/Norton. Greenidge was interviewed via Zoom on June 28, 2021, by writer and BIO member Sonja Williams.   Photo by Matthew Guillory

In this week’s episode, we interview Raquel Ramsey and Tricia Aurand, co-authors of Taking Flight: The Nadine Ramsey Story, published in September 2020 by the University of Kansas Press. Ramsey is a retired Beverly Hills High School teacher and ESL coordinator. She also is the widow of Col. Edwin P. Ramsey, a decorated World War II hero. Aurand is an award-winning screenwriter, media critic, and podcast host who has several scripts in production and development. Aurand and Ramsey were interviewed via Zoom on February 25, 2021 by writer and BIO member Lisa Napoli.   Tricia Aurand Raquel Ramsey  

In this week’s episode, we interview Patrick Parr, author of One Week in America: The 1968 Notre Dame Literary Festival and a Changing Nation, published March 2021 by Chicago Review Press. Parr’s narrative is a day-by-day examination of a week that began with President Lyndon B. Johnson announcement that he would not seek re-election and ended with the fallout created by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s the assassination. Parr includes never-before-published letters from festival attendees Joseph Heller (Catch-22), Ralph Ellison (Invisible Man), Kurt Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse-Five), and Norman Mailer (The Naked and the Dead). Parr was interviewed via Zoom in his home in Yokohama, Japan, on February 25, 2021 by writer and BIO member Lisa Napoli.

In this week’s episode we interview Alison M. Parker, author of Unceasing Militant: The Life of Mary Church Terrell, published by the University of North Carolina Press in December 2020. Parker’s book is the first full-length biography of Terrell, one of the most prominent African American activists of her time, and whose career bridged the late nineteenth century to the civil rights movement of the 1950s. Parker, a history professor and department chair at the University of Delaware, was interviewed by BIO member Lisa Napoli via Zoom in April 2021.

In this week’s episode, we interview Janice P. Nimura, author of The Doctors Blackwell: How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women and Women to Medicine, published in January 2021 by W. W. Norton & Company. Her previous book, Daughters of the Samurai: A Journey from East to West and Back, was a New York Times notable book in 2015. Her essays and book reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian, The Rumpus, and LitHub, among other publications. Nimura was interviewed by writer and BIO member Lisa Napoli via Zoom on March 18th, 2021.  

In this week’s episode, we interview former lawyer and college professor Jayne E. Zanglein, author of The Girl Explorers: The Untold Story of the Globetrotting Women Who Trekked, Flew, and Fought Their Way Around the World, published March 2, 2021, by Sourcebooks. Zanglein was interviewed in her home in North Carolina on March 18th, 2021, via Zoom by writer and BIO member Lisa Napoli.    

In this week’s episode, we interview Martha Ackmann, author of These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson, published Feb 25, 2021, by W. W. Norton & Company. Ackmann’s award-winning books include The Mercury 13: The True Story of Thirteen Women and the Dream of Space Flight, and Curveball: The Remarkable Story of Toni Stone, First Woman to Play Profession Baseball in the Negro League. Ackmann was interviewed in her home in western Massachusetts on March 10, 2021, via Zoom by writer and BIO member Lisa Napoli.

In this week’s episode, we interview Stephen Heyman, author of The Planter of Modern Life: Louis Bromfield and the Seeds of a Food Revolution, published April 14, 2020, by W.W. Norton & Company. Heyman, a former features editor for The New York Times Style Magazine, also has written for The Times, Slate, Vogue, and many other publications. He was interviewed in his home in Pittsburgh on March 10, 2021, via Zoom by writer and BIO member Lisa Napoli.

In this week’s episode, we interview Hilary Holladay, author of The Power of Adrienne Rich: A Biography, published November 17, 2020, by Nan A. Talese. Holladay was interviewed in her home in Orange Country, Virginia, on March 8, 2021, via Zoom by writer and BIO member Lisa Napoli.