BioBiographers International Organization

For Immediate Release Contacts: Brian Jay Jones President [email protected] [email protected] Cathy Curtis Vice President

Board of Directors Recent College Grad Becomes First Lois Banner Carol Berkin Chip Bishop Recipient of Rowley Prize Patricia Brady Kate Buford BOSTON, MA—Holly Van Leuven, who is working on a Barbara Burkhardt biography of entertainer Ray Bolger, is the first recipient of the Deirdre David Hazel Rowley Prize for Best Proposal for a First Biography. Gayle Feldman Amanda Foreman The prize provides recognition and funding to a first-time Beverly Gray biographer. The winner will receive $2,000, a careful reading Kitty Kelley from at least one established literary agent, a year’s membership Joshua Kendall in BIO, and the attendant publicity from being selected for the Marc Leepson Hans Renders prize. Van Leuven will receive the prize on May 17, 2014, at the William Souder Compleat Biographer Conference in Boston. Will Swift As a college freshman at Emerson College in Boston, Van Leuven struck up a chance correspondence with one of Bolger’s dance partners. The Advisory Council stories the dancer told Van Leuven inspired her to use every resource available to her as , chair a BFA Writing, Literature and Publishing candidate to pursue writing a biography. Deirdre Bair As a result, Van Leuven became the first person to access Ray Bolger’s papers and Catherine Clinton the first Ray Bolger biographer. Her unpublished thesis, a selection of her writing on Bolger, won Emerson College’s 2013 Senior Writing Award for High Distinction in Doris Kearns Goodwin Non-Fiction. She was also Co-Valedictorian of the Class of 2013. She lives in Joan Hedrick Cambridge, Massachusetts, and works at Harvard Education Publishing Group. Michael Holroyd The prize is named in memory of Hazel Rowley. Born in London, educated in Eric Lax England and Australia, and a long-time resident of the , Rowley was a BIO enthusiast from its inception, understanding the need for biographers to help each other. Before her death at age fifty-nine in 2011, she had authored four distinguished books: William S. McFeely Christina Stead: A Biography, a Times “Notable Book”; Richard Wright: The Marion Meade Life and Times, a Washington Post “Best Book”; Tȇte-à-Tȇte: Simone de Beauvoir and Nancy Milford Jean-Paul Sartre, translated into twelve languages; and Franklin and Eleanor: An Andrew Morton Extraordinary Marriage, a Fresh Air pick. Hazel was a passionate advocate for the art Martin J. Sherwin and craft of biography and a writer of exacting standards, as well as a helpmate to fellow T.J. Stiles biographers. Terry Teachout The Rowley Prize Committee comprised Gayle Feldman (chair), Carl Rollyson (proposal administrator), Jennifer Cockburn, John A. Farrell, Anne C. Heller, Roy Schreiber, Carol Sklenicka, and Will Swift. The final judges for the prize were Pulitzer P.O. Box 33020 Prize winner Debby Applegate, author of The Most Famous Man in America: The Santa Fe, NM Biography of , and Nigel Hamilton, author of the forthcoming The 87594 Mantle of Command; FDR at War, 1941-1942. Both are former presidents of BIO. 505-983-4671

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