Share this: July 2015 | Volume 10 | Number 5 Lee’s Biography of We're Here Penelope Fitzgerald to Help Need help tracking down a Wins Plutarch Award source for your biography or have another question related to the craft? This month we begin Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life offering a new service: by Hermione Lee won the Author’s Queries. Our first Plutarch Award for best comes from BIO Vice biography of 2014, as President Cathy Curtis: selected by members of Does anyone have contact Biographers International information for the Knopf editor Organization. The winning who dealt with Elaine de open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com who dealt with Elaine de book was announced at the Kooning’s autobiography Sixth Annual BIO Conference proposal in the late 1980s, or, in Washington, DC. failing that, for Knopf editors “I am absolutely delighted Among Lee's other books is Biography: A Very who were employed by the to have been awarded this Short Introduction. publisher at that time? prize, especially when I look at the competition!” said If you can answer this question Dame Hermione Lee when she heard the news. President of Wolfson College, or have a query of your own, Oxford, England, Lee was not present at the announcement of the winner. let us know. The three Plutarch finalists were: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandria by Helen Rappaport The Mantle of Command: FDR at War, 1941-1942 by Nigel Hamilton From the Editor Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh by John Lahr From the preconference research Named after the ancient Greek biographer, the prize is the genre’s equivalent of orientations to the awarding of the third Plutarch Award, the the Oscar, in that BIO members chose the winner by secret ballot from nominees annual BIO conference last month selected by a committee of distinguished members of the craft. This year marked was a winner. Each year I hear the third time BIO bestowed the award. Previous winners were Linda Leavell for attendees say “This is the best one yet,” and somehow the Holding on Upside Down: The Life and Work of Marianne Moore and Robert conference planners manage to Caro for The Passage of Power. outdo themselves the following year. On behalf of all BIO members, let me say a big thank you to our Conference Roundup officers, Brian Jay Jones, Cathy Curtis, Marc Leepson, and Barbara Burkhardt; Kitty Kelley for once Branch Keynote Talk and again graciously opening up her home for Friday’s cocktail Biographers in Conversation reception; Program Committee co- chairs Kate Buford and Bill Souder; open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com chairs Kate Buford and Bill Souder; Site Committee co-chairs Barbara Highlight BIO Conference Burkhardt and Robin Rausch; Will Swift, who chaired both the Almost 200 established and Coaching Committee and the BIO Award Nominations Committee; the aspiring biographers members of the Plutarch immersed themselves in their Nomination Committee and all the other committees involved in craft at the Sixth Annual putting on the conference; and Biographers International the panelists and moderators for sharing their knowledge. I’d also Organization Conference, held like to thank members who had June 6 at the National Press kind words for what we do here at Club in Washington, DC. TBC. As you might expect, this issue Amidst the various panel has plenty of conference sessions, attendees also saw BIO President Brian Jay Jones presents the 2015 coverage, along with most of our BIO Award to Taylor Branch. usual features (the Member Taylor Branch receive the Interview will return next month). 2015 BIO Award. Branch is Looking ahead, next issue has our annual review of biography on film, best known for his trilogy about Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights both documentaries and biopics, movement, known collectively as America in the King Years. along with our look at some of this fall’s most anticipated biographies. The Accidental Biographer As always, please let me know about stories you’d like to see, In his keynote address, Branch called himself an accidental and partial and perhaps even write, in future biographer, as he used the life of King and others to tell the story of the civil rights issues. movement, which he called “the last great uprising of citizens’ idealism that really Yours, changed the direction of history.” Branch wanted to better understand the Michael Burgan movement and address what he saw as problems with the existing books on it: They were “analytical and abstract” with an emphasis on interpretation. Branch open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com wanted to “feel its power, which for me was personal and quite deep.” Please Keep But before and while immersing himself in what would become a 24-year endeavor to better understand and then write about the movement and its makers, Your Info Branch worked as journalist, ghost wrote the memoirs of Watergate figure John Current Dean and basketball star Bill Russell, and spent hours recording the thoughts of an Making a move or just old friend who just happened to become US president: Bill Clinton. Branch changed your email? We ask recounted some of the recording sessions that would form the basis of Branch’s BIO members to keep their The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President. Clinton wanted to contact information up to date, document the history of his presidency as it unfolded, and his sessions with so we and other members Branch remained secret through the president’s two terms. For Branch, the know where to find you. sessions gave him the chance “to get the fullest record that historians will one day Update your information in the have” of what daily life was like for Clinton in the White House. Member Area of the BIO website. Clinton and Branch had worked together in Texas during George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign, and they often discussed political idealism. Branch thought he “had a better chance to influence [US politics] toward integrity as a writer than in politics.” With his King books, he explored the citizens’ idealism he Membership Up saw in the civil rights movement, the reaction to it, and its lasting effects. He said, for Renewal? “The civil rights movement set things in motion that are still benefiting our country Please respond promptly to today, including same-sex marriage…. The civil rights movement forced people to your membership renewal break down their emotional barriers against dealing with what equal citizenship notice. As a nonprofit really means in everyday life.” organization, BIO depends on Branch chose to depict the movement in as personal a way as possible, to fight members’ dues to fund our the urge in the United States to “reinterpret history wherever race relations are annual conference, the involved.” As an example, he cited the textbooks he read growing up in Atlanta, publication of this newsletter, and the other work we do to open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com which taught that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery. Many history and the other work we do to books, Branch believes, deal with what a culture is comfortable talking about. support biographers around the Telling the personal stories of the people of the civil rights movement in a narrative world. When renewing, please history, Branch hoped, would preserve some of the uncomfortable facets of race make sure the contact information we have for you is relations in the United States, thus providing a more accurate history. up to date. Thomas and Brinkley in Conversation The conference events kicked Are You a off in the morning with a Student? plenary breakfast session Or do you know one who is called “The Art and Craft of interested in biography? BIO Biography: Evan Thomas and now has a special student Douglas Brinkley in membership rate. Visit the BIO Conversation.” Between website to find out more. them, the two have authored biographies on a wide range Brinkley and Thomas discuss their craft. of figures who helped shaped Sold to Publishers the twentieth century, from William C. Davis presidents to Walter Cronkite. They engaged in an easy dialogue as they explored Looking for Lauretta: The Elusive Life some of the challenges they’ve faced during their careers. of a Pioneering Female Confidence For Brinkley, one challenge came when writing about Rosa Parks. When she Artist and the Confederacy’s Only Media Celebrity made her historic refusal to leave her bus seat, about a dozen or so people rode sold to Southern Illinois with her. But when Brinkley did his research, he interviewed 55 people who University Press claimed to be on the bus that day. “Everybody in Montgomery was on Rosa open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com Parks’s bus,” he joked. “I had no idea who to trust.” Brinkley also had personal John Oller American Guerrilla access to his subject and saw firsthand her willingness to help others, something (Francis Marion) that made writing the Parks book “probably the most moving personal biography” sold to Da Capo he’s done. by Jim Donovan at Following that observation, Evan Thomas said he had just finished a biography Jim Donovan Literary of Richard Nixon, and the president “was not a Rosa Parks.” But Thomas did Ronin Ro come to appreciate how hard it was to be Richard Nixon, who was socially Dark Knight: Frank Miller, Batman, awkward and “a powerfully lonely guy.” Nixon’s experiences intersected with the and the Superhero Movie sold to University Press of New life of another of Brinkley’s subjects, Walter Cronkite.