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...... THE 2018 PLUTARCH AWARD The 2018 BIO Award Recipient: Biographers International Organization is proud to present the Plutarch Richard Holmes trn~'l; HJOt :1 -,'..\PH Y Richard Holmes is the author of the prize-winning and best-selling The Age ofWonder, ()F 'l'IIJ-~ Ylï:. \l{ Award for the best biography of 2017, as chosen by you. ·2018 which was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and won the Royal Society Prize Congratulations to the ten nominees for the Best Biography of 2017: for Science Books and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction. He has written many other books, including Falling Upwards, an uplifting account of the pioneering generation of balloon aeronauts, and the classic Footsteps. lts companion volume, Sidetracks, and ThisLongPursuit (published in 2017) complete this trilogy. Holmes's first biography, Shelley: The Pursuit, won the Somerset Maugham Prize; Coleridge: Early Visions won the 1989 Whitbread Book of the Year Award; Coleridge: Darker Reflections won the Duff Cooper and Heinemann Awards; Dr. johnson & Mr. Savage won the James Tait Black Prize. Holmes holds honorary doctorates from the universities of East Anglia, East London, \l 1-:t; .1~ \1 1 1:~11 .11.1. GORBACHEV and Kingston. He was professor of biographical studies at the University of E~st Hl S L I F E A N O T IM E El izabcth Anglia from 2001 to 2007. An Honorary Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, a Fellow of the British Academy, he was BISHOP awarded the OBE (Order of the British Empire) in 1992. He lives in London and Norfolk with the novelist Rose Tremain. .. n [ JUtS r ""' C, l{.. \ \ 'I' H O \ <: 11 1 H'\ O \\ 810 Officers Ron Chernow Beverly Gray James Atlas, Judge Cathy Curtis, President Tim Duggan Anne C. Heller Stacy Schiff, Judge (Ij ->:: Deirdre David, Amanda Foreman Sarah Kilborne Gayle Feldman '- Vice President Irwin Gellman Dean King Caroline Fraser G"' Marc Leepson, Annette Gordon-Reed Linda Leavell Diana Parsell ~'- .,."' 1, "'::, Treasurer Michael Holroyd Ray Shepard William Souder vi Dean King, Secretary Eric Lax Sonja Williams David Stewart ' - È' David Levering Lewis Mariene Trestman Terese Svoboda ·· mEISl.. ·I~ . 3 _;;; ~ ·, "" _; ~ .8 . ' .. 0 Board of Directors Andrew Lownie Anne Boyd Rioux Richard Zacks •. " ,, ,J .i:: -. Q Kai Bird Megan Marshall Kai Bird, consultant 1 .. (jJ"' Cathy Curtis John Matteson from Leon Levy CoachinR Committee E John A. Farrell Center for Biography Will Swi t, Chair 0 Alice Mayhew :r: Brian Jay Jones Jon Meacham Cathy Curtis -0 '- Carla Kaplan Marion Meade Conference Site Linda Leavell .i::"' .'2 Kitty Kelley Andrew Morton Committee a:: Sarah Kilborne Joanny Moulin Deirdre David, Chair Plutarch Nomination 5 ::, Lucy Knight Arnold Rampersad Barbara Fisher Committee 0 Linda Leavell Stacy Schiff Dona Munker Anne C. Heller, Chair "'0, C: Heath Lee Martin J. Sherwin Carl Rollyson Kate Buford ~ 0 Anne Boyd Rioux T.J. Stiles Amanda Vaill Nassir Ghaemi, M.D. .2 Hampton Sides c:· Jean Strouse Brian Jay Jones ~ Justin Spring William Taubman 810 Award Committee Andrew Lownie ~ Billy Tooma Cathy Curtis, Chair .i:: Terry Teachout Julia Markus C: Mariene Trestman Ike Williams Deirdre David J.W. (Hans) Renders ~"' Sonja Williams Linda Leavell Ray Shepard C: $ Conference Program Carl Rollyson Will Swift, Ex-Officio 0 Will Swift ~ Advisory Council Committee Amanda Vaill ~ Debby Applegate, Chair John A. Farrell, Steve Weinberg i..: (IJ James Atlas :,. Co-Chair Program Editor 0 Kai Bird Rowley Prize Greg Daugherty V Heath Lee, Co-Chair ::,'- Taylor Branch Kate Buford Committee 0 Douglas Brinkley Art Direction C: Cathy Curtis James McGrath 0 Robert Caro Morris, Chair Fearless Future

~k BlOGRAPHERS INT.EJ\NI010NAL OIIGANiZATION -

Breakfast Plenary Session Panels-Concourse Level of the Graduate Center

Edmund Morris and Sylvia Jukes Morris Explain Why "Dead Is Easier" ISSUES Heath Hardage Lee holds a B.A. with honors in history 8:15-9:15AM wcAnoN. CONCOURSE/ PROSHANSKY AUDITORIUM Writing About the Vietnam War from Davidson College and an M.A. in French language and literature from the University of Virginia. As the 9:30-10:30AM Born and educated in Kenya, Sylvia Jukes Morris was bom 2017 Robert J. Dole Curatoria! Fellow, Lee created a trav­ Edmund Morris emigrated to and educated in England, where Are the rules different when writing about America's eling exhibition, The League of Wives: Vietnam POW MIA the United States in 1968. He now she taught history and English most controversial overseas war? A panel of historians Advocates & Allies, for the Dole lnstitute of Polities. Her first biography, Winnie Davis: Daughter of the Lost Cause, Jives with his wife and fellow bi­ literature before emigrating to and biographers who have written extensively about ographer, Sylvia Jukes Morris, in America. won the 2015 Colonial Dames of America Book Award the Vietnam War will discuss the challenges and op­ Kent, Connecticut. and a gold medal at the 2015 Independent Publisher Book Her first book, Edith Kermit portunities in researching, writing, and marketing Awards. Lee is currently working on The League of Wives: Morris is the author of The Rise Roosevelt: Portrait of a First Lady, biographies of politicians, military men and women, A True Story of Survival and Rescue From the Vietnam of Theodore Roosevelt, winner of was published in 1980 to nation­ and others whose lives were shaped by their partici­ Homefront (St. Martin's Press, 2019). the Pulitzer Prize and National wide critica) acclaim. The Christian pation in the war. Veteran biographers and historians Book Award in 1980. In 1985, he Science Monitor said it represent­ detail and compare research techniques, use of inter­ BASICS was appointed President Ronald ed "craftsmanship of the high­ views and oral histories, managing your time in the What Four Top Editors Look Reagan's biographer. Dutch: A est order," and R.W.B. Lewis, in a archives, tracking notes, and other practical aspects of MemoirofRonald Reagan, published in 1999, caused an in­ front-page review in the Washington Post Book World, called for in a Book Proposal ternational stir with its stylistic innovations, such as the it "an endlessly engrossing book, at once of historica! and biography work. 9:30-10:30AM use of multiple narrative voices and running metaphor. human importance." "Dutch never fails to convey the power and mystery of its Moderator Four senior editors from Doubleday, W. W. Norton, subject," remarked the New York Times Book Review. In 1997, Sylvia Morris published the first installment of a St. Martin's Press, and Penguin Random House ex­ Marc Leepson, historian and journalist, is the au­ two-volume biography, Rage far Fame: The Ascent of Clare plore how the current trends in the publishing world thor of nine hooks, including three biographies: Ballad In the fall of 2001, Morris published Theodore Rex, the sec­ Boothe Luce. Gore Vidal described it in the New Yorker as affect them and their colleagues. Giving us personal ond volume of his life of the 26th president. It won the "a model biography... of the sort that only real writers can of the Green Beret: The Life and Wars of Staf/ Sgt. Barry examples, they will share the most common red flags Los Angeles Times Book Prize for biography and currently write." Karen Heller wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer, "In Sadler; What So Proudly We Hailed: Francis Scott Key, A has three-quarters of a million copies in print. "As a liter­ this marvelous volume, Sylvia Jukes Morris has not just Life; and Lafayette: Idealist Genera/. He is the long-time se­ and the most enticing elements in book proposals ary work on Theodore Roosevelt, it is unlikely ever to be amassed information, but distilled it. The result is a por­ nior writer, arts editor, and columnist for the VVA Veteran, they have reviewed. They will also talk about what a surpassed," the Times Literary Supplement declared. His trait that is powerful and resonant." A sequel, Price ofFame: the magazine published by Vietnam Veterans of America. book needs to obtain the approval of their market­ subsequent book, Beethoven: The Un iversa/ Composer, was The Honorable Clare Boothe Luce, carne out in 2015. A member of BIO's Board of Directors, and the organiza­ ing departments. hailed by the Washington Post as a "deft, deeply satisfy­ tion's treasurer, he was drafted into the Army and served ing" musical biography, distinguished by "vast reserves "Both hooks are models of the biographer's art-me­ a 1967-68 tour of duty in the Vietnam War. He was a staff Moderator of feeling, fancy and intelligence." ticulously researched, sophisticated, fair-minded and writer at Congressional Quarterly in Washington from 1974 compulsively readable," Edward Kosner wrote in the to 1986. Will Swift, Ph.D., writes on American leaders and In November 2010, a chorus of critica) praise greeted Wal/ Street Journal. Columbia/Sony Pictures is currently British royalty. He is the author of The Roosevelts and the the publication of Co/one/ Roosevelt, the final volume adapting the volumes into a miniseries, with Gwyneth Panelists Royals, The Kennedys Amidst the Gathering Storm, and Pat of Morris's Roosevelt trilogy. He is now writing a life of Paltrow slated to star in the title role. and Dick: The Nixons, A Portrait of a Marriage. Swift has Kai Bird is the executive director and Distinguished Thomas Edison. been a featured speaker at the Richard Nixon, Franklin Lecturer of CUNY Graduate Center's Leon Levy Center D. Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy Libraries, and he has for Biography. He co-authored with Martin J. Sherwin the appeared on the television programs Morning Joe, Fox Pulitzer Prize-winning biography American Prometheus: News, and The Cycle. He is a co-founder of Biographers Are you not? The Triumph and Tragedy of]. Robert Oppenheimer. He has International Organization, its 2016-2018 president, the also written biographies of John J. McC!oy and McGeorge co-founder of the BIO mentorship program, and the found­ Bundy-and a memoir, Crossing Mandelbaum Gate: Coming er of the Editorial Excellence Award. ENTERTAINED • of Age Between the Arabs and Jsraelis. His most recent Real people. Real stories . Real storytelling. book is The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames, and he is currently working on a biography of President Panelists ::,:, Jimmy Carter. Amy Cherry is vice president and senior editor at the ::. New York City. Tim Duggan is the publisher of Tim Duggan Books, an ~ imprint of Crown at Penguin Random House. His books

'3ïa::a RA=-NAlOWAt<_I_U._~•IO-N______'3îa;OG~ o.GAN-I_U._i11_0N___ .,... __ .,... __ include winners of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book State University. Her current project, under contract with Moderator National Book Critics Circle, Edgar, Plutarch, and other Critics Circle Award, and multiple finalists for the National FSG, is a group biography of the Stieglitz circle. She Jives in awards. Franklin has received Guggenheim, Cullman BookAward. Heisa fellow at the New York lnstitute forthe Fayetteville, Arkansas. Gayle Feldman is under contract to Random House for a Center, and Leon Levy Biography fellowships in support of Humanities at NYU, a member of the Council on Foreign biography of its co-founder Bennett Cerf, for which she re­ her work. She has won the Roger Shattuck Prize for criti­ Relations, and is on the advisory board of the London Panelists ceived an NEH Public Scholar Fellowship, and is also New cism. Her reviews and writing have appeared in thè New Book Fair and Biographers International Organization. York correspondent for the Bookseller. She has published Yorker, the New York Review of Books, the New York Times Lisa Cohen's All We Know: Three Lives (Farrar, Straus a cancer memoir and a monograph on prize-winning Book Review, and other publications. Michael Flamini is an executive editor of nonfiction at and Giroux, 2012) was a finalist for the National Book and best-selling hooks, was a senior editor at Pub/ishers St. Martin's Press. His list of published biographies in­ Critics Circle, PEN/Bograd Weid, Lambda Literary, Weekly and publishing stringer for the business section of James Marcus is the former editor of Harper's Magazine cludes Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature by Linda Lear, The and BIO Plutarch awards, as well as a New York Times the New York Times, has written for many magazines and and the author of Amazonia: Five Years at the Epicenter of Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art Notable Book and Editors' Choice. Her writing has also newspapers, and started as a book editor in London. She the Dot-Com Juggernaut as well as seven translations from of Patricia Highsmith by Joan Schenkar, Maggie Smith: appeared in many anthologies and journals, includ­ was a founding board member of BIO and architect of the the ltalian, the most recent being Giacomo Casanova's The A Biography by Michael Coveny, and ]aan of Are: Her ing Wamen in Clothes, Queer 13, BOMB, newyorker.com, Hazel Rowley Prize. Duel. His work has appeared in Harper's, the Nation, Story by Regine Pernoud. Upcoming titles include biogra­ the Paris Review, Vogue, the New York Times, the Vassar the Atlantic, Story Quarterly, the Paris Review, Raritan, phies of Garrison Keillor, Garry Trudeau, and a group bi­ Review, Ploughshares, and Bookforum. She teaches at Panelists and Best American Essays. His next book, Glad to the Brink ography of the wives of Vietnam POWs by Heath Lee. He Wesleyan University. of Fear: A Portrait of Emerson in Thirteen Installments, will Marie Arana was born in Peru and carne to the U.S. at is a faculty member at NYU's School of Continuing and be published in 2019. He is also compiling a personal selec­ the age of nine. Her memoir, American Chica, was a final­ Professional Studies. Carla Kaplan, Davis Distinguished Professor of American tion from Emerson's journals, which will be published si­ Literature at Northeastern University and chair of the Signs ist for the National Book Award in 2001. Bolivar: American multaneously by Penguin Classics. Kristine Puopolo acquires and edits serious nonfic­ editorial board, writes on African-American and women's Liberator, won the Los Angeles Times biography prize in tion, biography, and memoir for Doubleday. Her list of au­ literature and culture. Her trade hooks include the award­ 2014. She has published two navels and a book of essays, The Mark Rotella has been a senior editor at Publishers Weekly thors includes journalists Anne Applebaum, Peter Baker, winning Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters and Miss Writing Life. Arana began her career in book publishing, for many years, supervising biography and memoir re­ Joby Warrick, David Hoffman, Dana Goldstein, Eugene Anne in Harlem: The White Wam en of the Black Renaissance where she held executive positions. For many years, she was views among other areas. He is the author of two hooks, Robinson, Kim Barker, and Megan K. Stack, scientists (both New York Times Notable Books) and the forthcom­ editor-in-chief of the Washington Post's Book World. She cur­ Stolen Figs and Other Adventures in Calabria (2004), a mem­ Lera Boroditsky and Richard Prum, historians David ing Something to Offend Everyone: The Life and Times of rently is director of the National Book Festival, chair of the oir and travelogue on the Italian region from which his Oshinsky, Tom Segev, and H. W. Brands, and others. Their Jessica Mitford. Kaplan has also edited and authored numer­ Cultures of the South at the Library of Congress, writer­ grandparents emigrated; and Amore: The Story of ltalian­ hooks have won honors including the Pulitzer Prize (Joby ous scholarly hooks and editions and received fellowships at-large for the Washington Post, and senior adviser to the American Song (2010), a cultural history of forty songs Warrick's Black Flags: The Rise of !sis, Anne Applebaum's from the NEH Public Scholar Program, Cullman Center, Librarian of Congress. during the 1940s and 'SOs and the singers-from Sinatra Gulag, and David Hoffman's The Dead Hand) and the Los DuBois Institute, Ransom and Beinecke libraries, and the and Bennett to Bobby Darin-who performed them. He is Ruth Franklin, a former editor at the New Republic, is au­ Angeles Times Book Prize in biography (John Farrell's Guggenheim Foundation. on the board of the National Book Critics Circle. thor of two hooks, A Thousand Darknesses: Lies and Truth Clarence Darrow), and have been finalists for the National in Holocaust Fiction (2011) and Shirley Jackson: A Rather Book Award (Anne Applebaum's Iron Curtain and Megan Justin Spring is the author of three full-length biogra­ ISSUES Haunted Life. Her biography of Jackson won the 2016 K. Stack's Every Man in This Vil/age Is a Liar), the PEN phies, as well as various monographs and museum publi­ (Dis)Regarding Biography cations. He has received many honors for his work as a bi­ America prize for biography (John Farrell's Richard Nixon : 10:45- 11:45AM The Life), and the National Book Critics Circle Award in bi­ ographer, an art historian, and a curator. Secret Historian: ---- The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo ography (Tom Segev's Simon Wiesenthal). Why the long-standing prejudice against biography Artist, and Sexual Renegade (FSG) was a 2010 National in the university, and is that changing now that many CRAFT Book Award Finalist, a Stonewall Honor Book of the American Library Association, the recipient of the Randy splendid commercial biographers are also academ­ Writing Multiple Lives Shilts Prize, the Lambda Literary Award, and the Geoff ies? What differences are there between biographical 9:30-10:30AM Mains Prize, and was runner-up for the 2011 PEN prize for works by journalists and generalists-Evan Thomas, biography. His latest book, The Gourmands' Way (FSG), David McCullough, whomever-and by academies like Whether to illuminate the lives of parallel but uncon­ has been named a Best Book of 2017 by Publishers Weekly. our panelists? What can we learn from each other? nected people, or to examine multiple individuals who He has also received fellowships from the Guggenheim are deeply connected, "group biography" is a loosely Foundation and Leon Levy Biography Center. Book design-cover & interior layout defined vehicle for portraying the life story of more Moderator than one person. Featuring authors who have success­ 8/Z • Responsive, mobile-friendly website John A. Farrell is the author of Richard Nixon: The Life, a fully employed group biography in diverse formats, Reviewing Biography, or What design & coding finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize, the 2017 PEN/Bograd this panel explores the special challenges and oppor­ Weid and Plutarch awards for biography, and a long list Makes the Critical Cut and Why? Education-based marketing nominee for the Carnegie prize in biography. His biogra­ tunities-from the initia! decision to organizational 9:30-10:30AM phy of Speaker Tip O'Neill won the Hardeman prize for techniques-for biographers who interweave multi­ the best book on Congress, and Clarence Darrow: Attorney ple lives. Four eminent critic-editors (authors all) dive deep LETTING for the Damned, was awarded the Los Angeles Times prize into how biographies are chosen (and not chosen) for • for the best biography of 2012. He is a graduate of the review. What really stands out? What are the trends? ~Q Moderator SERVICES - University of Virginia and a former White House corre­ Where should biographers look for coverage, and what spondent for the Boston Globe, where he also worked on Linda Leavell's Holding On Upside Down: The Life and Work should they expect, in our rapidly changing media the Spotlight team. He is at work on a biography of Senator of Marianne Moore (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013) was a Edward Kennedy. finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won landscape? How best can they help their cause? What are the biographies that are not being written and BITE·SIZED the Plutarch Award, the Modernist Studies Association MARKETING il/~ ,_.,...... f ... ,loe-~m...t... book award, and the PEN/Bograd Weid award for biog­ should be? These and other topics will be discussed, .Ä.frp z "-"-_l__ ,...__ raphy. She is also the author of Marianne Moore and the followed by a Q&A. Visual Arts: Prismatic Co/or (LSU Press, 1995), an award­ winning book of literary criticism. For twenty-four years she was a professor of American literature at Oklahoma http://fearless-future.com

~-~ ~-~ V' BIOGRAPHERS INTEllNATIONAl. OP.GANIZATION V' BIOGRAPHERS INTERIOO'IONAL ORPrinceton University. tract an agent or editor to their story, or how to make cles for the New Yorker, New York Magazine, the Daily Justin Gifford, Ph.D., is an associate professor of English their story impossible to put down. Beast, Slate, Aeon, Los Ange/es Review of Books, and the at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he teaches David 0. Stewart is the best-selling author of four award­ Forward. Shapiro is also a documentary filmmaker who African-American literature. His first book, Pimping winning works of history, including The Summer of 1787: Moderator won an Independent Spirit Award for directing IFC's Keep Fictions: African American Crime Literature and the Untold The Men Who Jnvented the Constitution and Madison's Gift: the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale and an Story of Black Pulp Publishing, is the first book on black Five Partnerships That Built America. He also has published Anne Boyd Rioux is professor of English at the University Emmy nomination for producing (and "story by" credit) street literature and was a finalist for the Edgar Allan three historica) mysteries; The Lincoln Deception was of New Orleans and the author of Constance Fenimore HBO 's Finishing Heaven. Shapiro's first nonfiction book, Poe Award. His second book, Street Poison: The Biography named the best historica) novel of2013 by Bloomberg View. Woo/son: Portrait of a Lady Novelist (Norton), chosen as The Stowaway: A Young Man's Extraordinary Adventure to of Jceberg Slim, was one of Amazon.com's Top 100 Books A Iawyer for 25 years, Stewart was Iaw clerk to Justice one of the ten best books of 2016 by the Chicago Tribune Antarctica, was published by Simon & Schuster in January of the Year in 2015. He is a fellow at the Leon Levy Center, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., of the U.S. Supreme Court and then fo­ and reviewed on the cover of the New York Times Book 2018 and was an Indie Next Pick. where he is writing a book on Black Panther Party leader cused on constitutional disputes and white-collar crimi­ Review. Her most recent book is Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Eldridge Cleaver. na) defense. Stewart, a veteran BIO member, is also the Story of Litt/e Wamen and Why It Still Matters (Norton), ISSUES president of the Washington Independent Review of Books, forthcoming this summer. She is a member of BI O's Board Resurrecting Forgotten Figures Diane Kies el is a judge on the Supreme Court of the State an online literary journal in Washington, O.C., and so of Directors. ofNewYork. Priortó her legal career, Kiese! was ajournal­ knows the literary world in and out. He is currently work­ 10:45-11:45AM ist in Washington, O.C., where she was the congressional ing on a politica) biography of George Washington. and Supreme Court correspondent for the San Diego Union Panelists This panel explores the rewards and challenges biog­ and Evening Tribune. She is the author oftwo textbooks on Alan Peil Crawford is the author of How Not to Get Rich: William Taubman is the Bertrand Snell Professor of raphers face when attempting to resurrect the Jives domestic violence, the latest being Domestic Violence: Law, The Financial Misadventures of Mark Twain and Twilight at Politica) Science Emeritus at Amherst College and the of men and women who may have been overlooked or Policy, and Practice, 2nd Ed., and the biography She Can Monticello: The Last Years of Thomas Jefferson, among other author of Gorbachev: His Life and Times. His biography marginalized-sometimes deliberately. Thanks to the Bring Us Home: Dr. Dorothy Boulding Ferebee: Civil Rights hooks. His essays and reviews have been published in the Khrushchev: The Man and His Era won the Pulitzer Prize success of books like Hidden Figures and Code Girls, bi­ Pion eer. Kiese! is the winner of the Worth Bingham Award, New York Times, the Washington Post, the Nation, National and the National Book Critics Circle Award. ographies that shed light on forgotten or little-known the Richard Slatten Prize for Virginia Biography, and the Review, the Weekly Standard, and many others. He has writ­ Colonial Dames of America National Book Award. BASICS ten regularly for the Wal! Streetjournal for 20 years. He has figures are now popular in the nonfiction/history mar­ ket. Whether tackling issues like escaping slavery­ Telling Life Stories: What Biographers also been a congressional press secretary and U. S. Senate 8/Z speechwriter. He Jives in Richmond, Virginia. when your owner is this country's first presidential Can Learn From Narrative Nonfiction couple, George and Mar tha Washington; serving as a Biography: The Ultimate 10:45-11:45AM John Matteson is Distinguished Professor of English at controversial minister in the Black Panther Party of lnterdisciplinary Approach John Jay College, CUNY. His first book, Eden's Outcasts: The the 1960s; or working as a visionary civil rights move­ 10:45-11:45AM This panel will consider how biographers can use Story ofLouisa May Alcott and Her Father, received the 2008 ment pioneer, the authors on this panel will offer the elements of narrative nonfiction to teil (and sell) Pulitzer Prize for Biography. His second book, The Lives guidance on how to successfully research and write We are living in the Golden Age of Biography. The ofMargaret Fuller, was awarded the Ann M. Sperber Prize genre's appeal to readers, from all walks of life, has about forgotten Jives. granted it a more serious look by academies in high­ er education. Liberal-arts professors are dedicating Moderator whole semesters to the study of biography. Doctoral biographers who speak to students The innovative combination of an Pamela Newkirk, Ph.D., is a multifaceted scholar, author, candidates are writing biographical dissertations. And enrolled in the course as well as hun­ academie course and a public lecture and award-winning journalist. Her Iatest book, Spectac/e: those outside of the humanities are beginning to see The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga (HarperCollins)-a Cofëàf Lfücs dreds of area residents who attend series is unusual, if not unique, the value of infusing their STEM courses with biog­ NAACP Image Award and Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Biographical Approaches to History and Culture the lectures free of charge. Total at­ in the country. The fact that it is raphy in order to humanize the subject matter. The tendance for the recently completed not just a public series, hut also an Wright Foundation Legacy Award winner and a top pick genre is transcending traditional scholarly views like Since 2004, the University of Mary spring series exceeded 10,000. academie course, adds a significant by NPR and other media outlets-illuminates how ra­ never before. But how do biographers themselves be­ Washington has presented a public dimension to the program. Students cial mythology distorted the historica! accounts about Although the University of Mary lecture series/academie course titled are instructed on the evolution of the a young African exhibited in the Bronx Zoo monkey come apart of the conversation? How do they gain the Washington is a public institution, "Great Lives: Biographical Approaches genre, then introduced to some of its house in 1906. Newkirk's first book, Within the Veil: Black attention of academies and get their work listed on the Great Lives program is largely to History and Culture." During that most prominent contemporary practi­ Journalists, White Media (NYU Press), examines how race course syllabi? Those questions, and much more, will supported by private funds. time, it has become a major cultural tioners. The result is an extraordinary influences news coverage. Her insightful articles on race, be addressed by this group of educators. (This panel is Beginning in 2004 with a grant and educational attraction in the opportunity for interaction among media, and African-American culture have appeared in part of BIO's exchange program with the Community from a generous benefactor, funds major newspapers nationwide. region of Virginia between Richmond biographers, students., faculty, and the College Humanities Association.) have been substantially augmented and Washington, D.C. genera! public. each year by local patrons who are Panelists Offered annually, Great Lives brings devoted to the program. Moderator Erica Armstrong Dunbar, Ph.D., is the Charles and Mary to campus between 15 and 20 major Billy Tooma, D.Litt., soon-to-be tenured assistant pro­ B!O is gratefulfór the support and Beard Professor of History at Rutgers University. Her first enthusiasm of/Villiam Crawley, book, A Fragi/e Freedom: African American Wamen and fessor of English at Essex County College, is the award­ . directoro/Great Lives, and Brianjay Emancipation in the Antebellum City, was published by Yale nominated filmmaker of the documentaries Clarence 1, ~1111UNIVERSITY OF Jones, associate director. University Press in 2008. Her recent book, Never Caught: Chamberlin: Fly First & Fight Afterward (2011), Poetry of BI0 GRAPH ERS INTERNATIONAL ORG MARY WASHINGTON ~ ...__. The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit ofTheir Runaway SI ave, Witness (2015), and The Black Eagle of Harlem (2017). He holds various degrees in literature and writing from

'\il·~ '\il·~ V' BIOORAPHERS lNTEkNATIONALOROANIZATION V' BIOG!tAPftEllS )>,'nl\NA'llO!W, OllGANIUflON of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in biography for Margaret Moderator Fuller: A New American Life and the author of The Peabody Sisters, which won the Francis Parkman Prize and the Anne C. Hel/er's Ayn Rand and the World She Made (Nan Round-Table Discussions Mark Lynton History Prize and was a finalist for the Talese/Doubleday/Anchor 2009/2010) was a New York Pulitzer Prize. She is the Charles Wesley Emerson College Times Notable Book and was chosen a best hoolt of the 1:45-2:45 PM Professor in the Department of Writing, Literature and year by Time magazine, the Daily Beast, USA Today, the San Publishing at Emerson College, where she teaches nar­ Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, Library Journal, Round tab/es offer a chance to network with biographers working in yourfield, share resources, rative nonfiction and the art of archival research in the and Bloomberg. Her most recent book is Hannah Arendt: A and solve common problems. Conference participants are invited to register for one ofthe M.F.A. creative writing program. Life in Dark Times, published by Harcourt Houghton Mifflin in 2015. She has been an award-winning editor at maga­ following topica! round tab les, with leaders present at each table to facilitate discussion. Daniel Mendelsohn is an internationally best-selling au­ zines including the Antioch Review, Esquire, and Lear's, is thor, critic, essayist, and translator who writes frequently the farmer executive editor of magazine development at for the New Yorker and New York Review of Books and has Condé Nast Publications, and is a fellow of the New York • The Power of Celebrity Bios, led by Beverly Gray and Vanda Krefft been a columnist for New York, Harper's, and the New York Institute for the Humanities and a board member of the • Politica} Biographies, led by lrv Gellman Times Book Review. His most recent book, An Odyssey: A New York University Biography Seminar. • First-time Biographers, led by Cathy Curtis { Father, a Son, and an Epic, published in 2017, was shortlist­ • Women's Lives, led by Sarah Kilbourne and Heath Hardage Lee ed for the Saillie Gifford Prize and named a Best Book of Panelists Writing for Young Readers, led by Ray Shepard the Year by NPR, Library Journal, Kirkus, and Newsday. His ' Griffin Dunne is an actor and filmmaker. He has appeared other hooks include two memoirs, The Lost: A Search for • Literary Biography, led by Anne Boyd Rioux in An American Werewolf in London, After Hours, Quiz Show, Six of Six Mil/ion (2006) and The Elusive Embrace (1999), • Biography and Narrative Nonfiction, led by Jonathan Eig and Dean King Game 6, and other films . More recently he played opposite two collections of essays, and a translation, with com­ Finding an Agent, led by Roger S. Williams Matthew McConaughey, as Dr. Vass, in the Oscar-nominated mentary, of the complete poems of Constantine Cavafy. He Dallas Buyers Club, and in the Jill Soloway series 1 Love Dick teaches literature at Bard College. with Kevin Bacon and Katherine Haun. In 1995, Dunne was George Prochnik's most recent book, Stranger in nominated for an Academy Award for Best Live Action a Strange Land: Searching for Gershom Scholem and Short Film for Duke of Groove, which he directed and co­ Jerusalem, was a New York Times Editors' Choice and has wrote. Since then he has directed films such as Addicted to William Paterson University and Drew University. As a the lives of their subjects. Critics have not always been been shortlisted for the Wingate Prize in the U.K. His Love, Practical Magie, and Fierce People, as well as numerous deputy director of the Community College Humanities kind to such experiments in point-of-view, but they previous book, The lmpossible Exile: Stefan Zweig at episodes of the TV show Th e Good Wife. In 2017, he produced Association and trustee on the Board of the New Jersey can offer an innovative and useful path into the life of the End of the World, received the National Jewish and directed Joan Didion: The Center Wil! Not Hold, a docu­ College English Association, he makes it a point to advo­ the biography's central figure. Book Award for Biography/Memoir in 2014. Prochnik mentary about the life of his aunt, Joan Didion. cate the value of the liberal arts in higher education. is also the author of In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Stacy Schift is the author of Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov), Meaning in a World of Noise (2010) and Putnam Camp: Panelists Moderator winner of the Pulitzer Prize; Saint-Exupéry, a Pulitzer Sigmund Freud, James Jackson Putnam, and the Purpose Prize finalist; and A Great Jmprovisation: Frank/in, France, Amanda Vaill is the author of the best-selling biogra­ Tony Catandrillo, Doctor of Letters candidate at Drew ofAmerican Psychology (2006). He has written for the New and the Birth ofAmerica, winner of the George Washington phy of Gerald and Sara Murphy, Everybody Was So Young; University, focuses his research on the intersection of York Times, the New Yorker, and the L.A. Review of Books Book Prize. A No. 1 best seller, her Cleopatra: A Life, was Somewhere: The Life of Jerome Robbins; Hotel Florida: polities and sports. He is working on a dissertation that is and is editor-at-large for Cabinet magazine. published to great acclaim in 2010. David McCullough Truth, Love, and Death in the Spanish Civil War; the forth­ concerned with baseball as "soft power" diplomacy du ring hailed her most recent book, The Witches: Salem, 1692, also coming The World Opened Up: Selected Writings ofJerome CRAFT the beginnings of American expansion in the late 19 th cen­ a No. 1 best seller, as "brilliant from start to finish ." Schiff Robbins; and the Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning doc­ tury, illustrating the place of Albert Spalding as an agent On the Screen and on the Page has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation umentary,Jerome Robbins: Something to Dance About. A fi­ of foreign policy. His next project is slated to be the biog­ and the National Endowment for the Humanities and was nalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, a 1999 3:00-4:00PM raphy of Richard L. "Dixie" Walker, United States ambas­ a Director's Fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars Guggenheim Fellow, and a 2017 Fellow of the Center for sador to the Republic of Korea (1981-1986). A conversation on the differences in narrative strate­ Ballet and the Arts at New York University, she is at work and Writers. gy, framing, pacing, research, and other issues of art Rebecca L. Williams, assistant professor of English at on a biography of the Schuyler sisters, wife and sister-in­ and craft between filmed and written works of biog­ Essex County College, teaches African-American liter­ Iaw of Alexander Hamilton. ature, women's literature, and college composition ll. raphy, with filmmaker Griffin Dunne and print biogra­ She currently serves as the president of the Community Panelists pher Stacy Schiff. College Humanities Association's Eastern Division as Beverty Gray, who once developed 170 low-budget fea­ well as regularly chairing her college's annual spring hu­ tures for B-movie maven Roger Corman, is the author manities conference. Her favorite authors include Toni of Roger Corman: Blood-Sucking Vampires, Flesh-Eating Morrison, 0ctavia E. Butler, Flannery 0'Connor, and Cockroaches, and Driller Killers. Gray has also published 1 Edward P. Jones. Ron Howard: From Mayberry to the Moon ... and Beyond. She teaches online screenwriting workshops for UCLA CRAFT l Extension's world-famous Writers' Program, and her Putting the 'I' in Biography popular blog, "Beverly in Movielarid," covers movies, Visit Our Conference Bookseller 3:00-4:00PM moviemaking, and growing up Hollywood-adjacent. In November 2017, in celebration of the fiftieth anniversa­ The independent Merritt Bookstore of Millbrook, New York, in partnership with BIO 2018, This panel will confront the challenging question ry of the film's release, Algonquin Books published her will be selling recent biographies by our speakers, panelists, and other conference partici­ of when (and how) it's appropriate for the author to Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How The Graduate Became the pants at the book table on Saturday, May 19. The table will be open from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. make an appearance in the biography of someone else. Touchstone of a Generation. Panelists have published first-person biographies, in Megan Marshall is the author of the new biography which their own stories intersect meaningfully with Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast. She is the winner

~-~ \Ï).~ V' BIOGRAPHERS INTERNATIONÁl, OltGANIZATlON v• BlOGMl'HE1'S INTEIINJITIOlNew York Public Library's Cullman Center, the Likhachev involve special challenges. You need to write clearly Foundation, and the Leon Levy Center for Biography. She in this area and help biographers understand their CRAFT and persuasively about complex works (or ephemeral is at work on Balanchine: a Cultural Geography. rights-and limits-under the law. The Soul of a Biographer performances), decide how much specialist language 4:15-5:15PM to employ, and find a publisher willing to take a gam­ Anthony Tommasini is the chief classica! music critic Moderator ble on a subject who may be unknown to the genera! of the New York Times and the author of three hooks. He holds degrees from Yale University (B.A.), Yale School of Diane Kiese/ is a judge on the Supreme Court of the State A conversation between two stellar longtime biog­ public. Four biographers will discuss their experienc­ Music (M .M.) , and Boston University (D.M.A.). His inter­ of New York. Prior to her legal career, Kiese! was a journal­ raphers who both published memoirs about the bi­ es in writing about visual artists, a choreographer, a est in the work of the composer and cri tic Virgil Thomson ist in Washington, D.C ., where she was the congressional ographer's life last year: Richard Holmes (This Long classica! composer, and an avant-garde pop composer culminated with his book Virgil Thomson: Composer on and Supreme Court correspondent for the San Diego Union Pursuit) and James Atlas (The Shadow in the Garden: A and performer. the Aisle, published in 1997 by W. W. Norton & Company. and Evening Tribune. She is the author oftwo textbooks on Biographer's Tale) . As a pianist, he made two recordings for Northeastern domestic violence, the latest being Domestic Violence: Law, Moderator Records of Thomson's music, Portraits and Self Portraits Policy, and Practice, 2nd Ed., and the biography She Can Panelists and Mostly About Love: Songs and Vocal Works. Before join­ Bring Us Home: Dr. Dorothy Boulding Ferebee: Civil Rights Heath Hardage Lee holds a B.A. with honors in history ing the Times, he covered classica! music and theater for Pi oneer. Kiese! is the winner of the Worth Bingham Award, James Atlas is the author of De/m ore Schwartz: The Life from Davidson College and an M.A. in French language the Boston Globe. the Richard Slatten Prize for Virginia Biography, and the of an American Poet, which was nominated for a National and literature from the University of Virginia. As the Colon ia! Dames of America National Book Award. Book Award, and Be/low: A Biography. His memoir about 2017 Robert J. Dole Curatoria! Fellow, Lee created a trav­ his career as a biographer, The Shadow in the Garden: A eling exhibition, The League of Wives: Vietnam POW MIA Panelists Biographer's Tale, was published in 2017. Atlas is also the Advocates & Allies, for the Dole lnstitute of Polities. Her founder of the Penguin Lives series. In his long career as Eric Rayman, a graduate of Harvard College and Columbia first biography, Winnie Davis: Daughter of the Lost Cause, a journalist and critic, he has been on the staffs of the New Law School, is a partner at Miller Korzenik Sommer won the 2015 Colonial Dames of America Book Award Yorker, the New York Times, and the Atlantic. and a gold medal at the 2015 Independent Publisher Book Rayman LP, where his practice focuses on media and pub­ Awards. Lee is currently working on The League of Wives: ~ 9Z1fiOGRAPHER'S lishing, employment, and copyright. He joined the firm in Richard Ho/mes is the author of The Age of Wonder, which A True Story of Survival and Rescue from the Vietnam 2008 after serving as an in-house attorney, counsel, or ex­ won the Royal Society Prize fo r Science Books and the Homefront (St. Martin's Press, 2019). ___..., v~ A MONTHLY NEw_SLETIER C,t,a,J. ecutive for several major media companies, including the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction. His ~•~a«tJ•Ja• i i.W ---- New Yorker, Simon & Schuster, and Home Box Office. He other hooks explore the Jives of Shelley, Coleridge, and Panelists taught media and entertainment law as an adjunct profes­ the young Dr. Samuel Johnson; Falling Upwards, about sor at the Cardozo School of Law for more than 20 years. the early aeronauts; and the classic biographical trilogy, Cathy Curtis is the author of A Generous Vision: The Footsteps, Sidetracks, and This Long Pursuit. Holmes was ~ch month, members of BIO receive Kirk T. Schroder operates an extensive entertainment Creative Life of Elaine de Kooning (Oxford University Press, professor of biography at the University of East Anglia and arts law practice, involving all aspects of entertain­ 2017) and Restless Ambition: Grace Hartigan, Pa inter (OUP, an informative newsletter devoted to and is an honorary fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge. ment and the arts, including film, television, literary pub­ 2015). Forthcoming in her OUP trilogy of biographies of He writes for the New York Review of Books and lives in the art and craft of biography. lishing, music, radio, theater, visual arts, advertising and women artists is Alive Still: The Singular ]ourney of Neil London with the novelist Rose Tremain. Blaine-about a pa inter stricken by a severe type of polio marketing, internet, and new media. He is the immediate at the height of her career who made an extraordinary The Biographer's Craft features news past chair of the American Bar Association Entertainment comeback. Curtis, a board member and former vice pres­ ident of BIO, has a master's degree in the history of art about the business, interviews and from the University of California, Berkeley. She is a former articles with biographers about Los Angeles Times staffwriter and art critic. techniques, notification of books sold Anthony DeCurtis, a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, is the author of Lou Reed: A Life (Little, Brown, to publishers, new biographies coming NEED HELP WITHYOUR BIOGRAPHY? 2017) and Rocking My Life Away: Writing About Music and into stores, research tips, and more. Other Matters (Duke University Press, 1998). He collabo­ BIO's mentoring program offers the advice of biographers in many fields of expertise. rated with Clive Davis on his memoir, The Soundtrack of Whether you are just starting to think of a subject, working on your manuscript, or de­ My Life (Simon & Schuster, 2013) . A three-time winner of ciding how to launch your book, our mentors can help with questions large and small. We ASCAP Deerns Taylor/Virgil Thomson Awards for excel­ offer you a selection of mentors suited to your topic. You choose the number of hours you lence in writing about music, he has served on the Rock It's just one more benefit of and Roll Hall of Fame nominating committee for more need, for mentoring by phone, email, or Skype. The introductory fee is $60 for the first hour. than two decades. DeCurtis holds a Ph.D. in American lit­ your BIO membership. Subsequent hours are charged at a higher rate. For more information, and to sign up, contact:' erature from Indiana University and is a Distinguished Lecturer in the creative writing program at the Un iversity of Pennsylvania. Cathy Curtis [email protected]

Elizabeth Kendal/ is a dance and culture critic and as­ sociate professor of literary studies at The New School.

'3io;;OORAP~ Al ORGAN_I_ZJJ_IO_N______'3io-;-IOORAP~ LORCANJ--ZAT-ION______8/Z ISSUES Divided Legacy of Peace and Politica/ Warfare and Crystal Panelists The Antagonist Writing About Friendship in Biography Eastman on Wamen and Revolution. An activist for peace 4:15-5:lSPM 4:15-5:lSPM and democracy, Cook is a farmer vice-president for re­ Anne C. Heller's Ayn Rand and the World She Made (Nan search, American Historica! Association; founder and Talese/Doubleday/Anchor 2009/2010) was a New York What do you do when your book blows up? How do you Eleanor Roosevelt was said to have had a "talent for chair, the Fund for Open Information and Accountability Times Notable Book and was chosen a best book of the deal with antagonistic subjects? Kitty Kelley (Frank friendship." How does a biographer view his or her sub­ (FOIA, Ine.); and co-chair, Freedom of Information and year by Time magazine, the Daily Beast, USA Today, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, Library'journal, Sinatra) and Joe Hagan (Jann Wenner), with tales from ject through the particular lens of friendship? What Access Committee, Organization of American Historians. and Bloomberg. Her most recent book is Hannah Arendt: A the trenches. are the challenges and rewards of examining friend­ Her work has been featured on C-Span and Ken Burns's PBS documentary The Roosevelts. Life in Dark Times, published by Harcourt Houghton Mifflin ships in subjects' lives? This panel of biographers will in 2015. She has been an award-winning editor at maga­ Moderator discuss how writing about Eleanor Roosevelt and her BASICS zines including the Antioch Review, Esquire, and Lear's, is Charles Slack is the award-winning author of several female relationships outside of her marriage to FDR What to Leave In, What to Leave Out the farmer executive editor of magazine development at enriched their portraits of the subject. Condé Nast Publications, and is a fellow of the New York hooks. His latest, Liberty's First Crisis: Adams, Jefferson, and 4:15-5:lSPM the Misfits Who Saved Free Speech, was published in 2015 Institute for the Humanities and a board member of the New York University Biography Seminar. by Grove Atlantic. Hetty, based on the life of Wall Street Moderator You work for a year or two (or more) gathering a pioneer Hetty Green, won the 2005 Connecticut State Mariene Trestman, author of Fair Labor Lawyer: The mountain of material. Now what? Biographers choose Vanda Krefft is the author of The Man Who Made the Book Award for Biography and the Elle Magazine Reader Remarkable Life of New Deal Attorney and Supreme Court the facts and anecdotes that best tel1 their stories. But Movies: The Meteoric Rise and Tragic Fall of William Prize for Biography. Noble Obsession was based on the Advocate Bessie Margo/in (LSU Press), is currently at work how much research can you include and still keep the Fox (Harper, 2017), the first in-depth biography of life of inventor Charles Goodyear. The New York Public on a collective biography, Most Fortunate Unfortunates: 20 th Century Fox founder William Fox. The Washington Library named Noble Obsession one of the 25 best Books narrative lively? What determines how you treat your History of New Orleans's Jewish Orphans' Home, 1855- Post called the book "a tale that will engage amateur to Remember for 2002. Blue Fairways, an American jour­ subject? Hear these issues and others discussed by 1946. Both hooks draw on experience. Lawyer-turned­ movie enthusiasts and film historians" and praised its "ex­ ney based on a trip down the East Coast from Maine to three highly acclaimed biographers whose work rang­ author Trestman, who has won funding from the National pert scholarship''. and "tight prose." Publishers Weekly de­ Florida, one public golf course at a time, was a finalist for es in length from nearly a thousand pages to a hun­ Endowment for the Humanities, Hadassah-Brandeis scribed the book as "captivating," with "gripping sto­ the United States Golf Association's International Book dred fifty pages to profiles of several thou­ Institute, American Jewish Archives, Supreme Court New Yorker rytelling," and Amazon.com chose it as a Best Book of Award. A graduate of Harvard, Slack was a newspaper re­ Historica) Society, and Texas Jewish Historica] Society, sand words. December 2017, one of only ten across all categories. A far­ porter in Tennessee and Virginia before turning to writ­ had a personal relationship with Margolin prompted by mer entertainment industry journalist, she has a B.A. and ing and editing full-time. common childhood experiences; Margolin grew up in Moderator M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and is a member the orphanage, and Trestman was a ward of the succes­ of Phi Beta Kappa. William Souder is the author of Under a Wild Sky (2004), Panelists sor agency. a biography of John James Audubon that was a finalist for Claudia Roth Pierpont is a staff writer for the New Joe Hagan has written for New York, Rolling Stone, the the Pulitzer Prize, and On a Farther Share: The Life and Yorker, where she has written about the arts for more than Wal/ Street Journal, and many other publications and pub­ Panelists Legacy of Rachel Carson (2012), a New York Times Notable lished long-form profiles and investigative exposés of twenty years. She is the author of three hooks: Passionate Patricia Bell-Scott is professor emerita of women's stud­ Book of the year and named one of the Top 25 Nonfiction Minds (2000), a collection of essays about wamen writers some of the most significant figures and subjects of our ies at the University of Georgia and author of The Firebrand Books of the Year by Kirkus Reviews. Souder's current proj­ time, including Hillary Clinton, Karl Rove, the Bush fam­ ranging from Hannah Arendt to Mae West; Roth Unbound: and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, ect, Mad at the World: John Steinbeck and the American A Writer and His Books (2013), an exploration of the life and ily, Henry Kissinger, Dan Rather, Goldman Sachs, the New Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle /or Social Justice, which Century, will be published by Norton in 2019. Souder Jives work of Philip Roth; and American Rhapsody (2016), a col­ York Times, and Twitter. Sticky Fingers, his biography of won the Lillian Smith Book Award. This book was also near Minneapolis, Minnesota. Iection of essays on American subjects including George Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, won acclaim in the named Best Adult Nonfiction by the American Library Gershwin, Nina Simone, and the Chrysler Building. She has Times and elsewhere as one of the top biographies of 2017. Association, a finalist for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence a Ph.D. in ltalian Renaissance art history and Jives in New Kitty Kelley is an internationally acclaimed writer, hav­ in Nonfiction, and longlisted for the National Book Award. York City. ing published seven New York Times best-selling biogra­ Bell-Scott wrote the introduction for a new edition of Pauli phies, five of which debuted at No. 1. Kelley's awards in­ Murray's memoir, Song in a Weary Throat, which will be clude the 2014 Founders Award for Career Achievement published by W. W. Norton in May of 2018. from the American Society of Journalists and Authors; 2011 Brigid O'Farrell, author of She Was One of Us: Eleanor International Book Award for Oprah: A Biography; and 2005 Roosevelt and the American Worker, is an independent schol­ PEN Oakland Censorship Award for The Family: The Real Story ar affiliated with the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, George ofthe Bush Dynasty. After His Way: The Unauthorized Biography Washington University. Her six earlier hooks include of Frank Sinatra, Kelley received the American Society of BIO AWARDS TWO NEW FELLOWSHIPS Rocking the Baat: Union Women's Voices 1915-1975 with Joyce Journalists and Authors' Outstanding Author Award for Kornbluh and Beyond Gender: The New Polities of Work and Robert and Ina Caro have graciously agreed that BIO should establish a travel fellowship in "courageous writing on popular culture" and the Philip Family with Betty Freidan. Her research on working wamen M. Stern award for "outstanding service to writers and the their name, and Kitty Kelley generously offered to support the first year of funding for the has appeared in academie journals, newspapers, magazines, writing profession." She lives in Washington, D.C. award. The fellowship is designed to support biographers in developing the importance of and online. She is currently writing a history of women in the construction trades. She is a member of the National a sense of place in their subjects' lives. Our two winners, each receiving $2,500, were Natalie Writers Union, UAW 1981. Dykstra, who will travel to Italy, and Marina Harss, who will visit Russia.

Blanche Wiesen Cook is Distinguished Professor of The Chip Bishop Fellowship is named in honor of a BIO board member who treasured the history and women's studies at John Jay College and the memory of his first visit to a BIO conference; for the first year, it has been generously support­ Graduate Center, CUNY. Author of the three-volume biog­ ed by James McGrath Morris and has been awarded to Natascha Scott-Stokes, who has traveled raphy of Eleanor Roosevelt (Vol. I, 1992, awarded the Los Angeles Times Biography Prize and the Lambda Literary from Chile to attend the conference. Prize; Vol. II, 1999; and Vol. III 2016), she is a longtime print and media journalist (Radio Pacifica and CUNY-TV). Her previous hooks include The Declassified Eisenhower: A

\ÏJ,.•~ \ÏJ..•~ V' BIOGRAPHERS INTERNATIONAL OR.GANIZATION V' BIOORAPHERS lNTEllNATIONAl. ORGANIZATION Sunday 9:00AM-11:00AM Endowment for the Humanities, Hadassah-Brandeis SAVE THE DATE! lnstitute, American Jewish Archives, Supreme Court Sunday morning wil! afford attendees a chance to par­ Historica) Society, and Texas Jewish Historica) Society, IR1 Please join us on the evening ofWednesday, November 7, at ticipate in one of the following optional in-depth work­ had a personal relationship with Margolin prompt~d by 1 the Fabbri Mansion in New York City for the presentation shops. The workshops wil! be held on the Concourse common childhood experiences; Margolin grew up in ...• of the fifth annual BIO Editorial Excellence Award to Lisa Level of The Graduate Center. the orphanage and Trestman was a ward of the succes­ sor agency. Reardon, former senior editor, Chicago Review Press. The Art of the Proposal .. Writing Biography for Young Readers F1 In past years, we have honored legendary editors at large SUSAN RABINER b.i;,I WINIFRED CON KLING & CATHERINE REEF publishing companies. For the 2018 award, we sought an 111> il!!! For many would-be biographers, writing a good pro­ • editor at an independent press who has made a serious ef­ posal can be as daunting as researching or writing This workshop is for biographers who are interested fort to acquire biographies and to help biographers produce the book. So what makes a good proposal? Passion, re­ in writing or adapting life stories for younger audi­ hooks that inform and delight readers. search, and fine writing all count. But perhaps most ences, from picture-book readers to young adults. The • important is the recognition that, while it's your sub­ new emphasis on nonfiction in education and in chil­ Reardon's profile on the Chicago Review Press website listed ject's life, it's your story. This session with an editor dren's publishing has created an opportunity for biog­ ~ biography first among her specialties and quoted her as say­ with thirty years of experience wil! teach you how to raphers whose subjects are relevant to younger read­ Lisa Reardon, farmer ing that she is especially interested in "literary/arts figures know your story, write that great proposal, and even ers and who would like to reach new markets. Two accomplished writers of biography and biographical senior editor, Chicago and fascinating women." more important, how to recognize when you have clone so. narratives (picture hooks through YA) will guide par­ Review Press, will re­ Among Reardon's authors are: Steve Paul (Hemingway ticipants through the process of telling engaging life ceive the fifth annual at Eighteen: The Pivotal Year That Launched an American Susan Rabiner was an editor for more than thirty years stories for young readers and provide their perspec­ and currently runs Susan Rabiner Literary. She is the BIO Editorial Excellence Legend-acquired at a BIO Conference); Mary Wisniewski tives on how to market such stories. co-author (with Alfred Fortuhato) of Thinking Like Your Award in November. (Algren: A Life); Paige Bowers (The Genera/'s Niece: The Little- Editor: How to Write Great Serious Nonfiction-and Get Winifred Conkling is an award-winning author of fic­ Known de Gaulle Who Fought to Free Occupied France; and lt Published. Two of the biographers she represents have tion and nonfiction for young readers. Her recent works Matthew Algeo (Harry Truman's ExcellentAdventure: The True won Pulitzer Prizes for their work. include Votes for Wamen! American Suffragists and the Battle for the Ballot (Algonquin, 2018); Hidden Figures (the Story ofa GreatAmerican Road Trip and The President Isa Sick Man, about Grover Cleveland). Making the Most of picture book written with Margot Lee Shetterly, Harper Reardon was senior editor at Chicago Review Press from 2011 to March 2018. She began at the Research Interviews Collins, 2018); Radioactive! (Algonquin, 2016); Passenger on press in 1999, working in the marketing department at its distribution company before moving JAMES McGRATH MORRIS & the Pearl (Algonquin, 2015), winner of the Carter Woodson MARLENE TRESTMAN Award; and Sylvia and Aki (Random House, 2011), winner to editorial in 2004. Reardon majored in French language and literature at Kalamazoo College of the Jane Addams Children's Literature Award and the and holds a master's degree in writing from DePaul University. What goes into a productive research interview? Tomás Rivera Mexican-American Children's Book Award. Geared for novice biographers as wel! as seasoned au­ Conkling studied journalism at Northwestern University th The Fabbri Mansion (The House of the Redeemer) is at 7 East 95 Street. A reception with light thors seeking to hone their skills, co-presenters James and received an M.F.A. from the Vermont College of refreshments wil/ precede Reardon's talk about her experience of editing biographies. Venue and McGrath Morris and Mariene Trestman will share Fine Arts. ticketing information wil/ be available later this year in the Biographer's Craft newsletter and on practical tips and model techniques to prepare for and Catherine Reef has written more than forty hooks, most the BIO website. conduct effective interviews, present various ways to recently Victoria: Portrait of a Queen (Clarion). Her hooks record interviews and make transcripts, and discuss include the highly acclaimed Florence Nightingale: The legal and ethica! issues involved in conducting inter­ Courageous Life of the Legendary Nurse; The Brontë Sisters: views and quoting from the interviews. The Brief Lives of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne; and Frida & Diego: Art, Love, Life. Her work has earned her the Sydney James McGrath Morris is author of The Ambulance Taylor Award, the Joan G. Sugarman Award, and Jefferson Drivers: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and a Friendship Made Cup, Golden Kite, and National Jewish Book Award honors. and Lost in War, as well as several biographies, including In addition, her titles have consistently appeared on lists the New York Times best-selling Eye on the Struggle: Ethe/ of "best" and "notable" hooks. Reef Jives in College Park, Payne, The First Lady of the Black Press and Pu/itzer: A Life Maryland, with her husband, photographer John Reef. in Polities, Print, and Power. He is currently at work on a biography of the late mystery writer Tony Hillerman that Audio Books ASpecial Thank-You requires conducting many interviews. ROBIN MILES & SONJA WILLIAM$ -- - ~ - The Biographers International Organization would like to express its heartf.elt grati­ Mariene Trestman, author of Fair Labor Lawyer: The An award-winning radio documentary producer­ tude to the Leon Levy Center for its generous collaboration in arranging our confer­ Remarkable Life of New Deal Attorney and Supreme Court Sonja Williams-joins with one of the audio world's Advocate Bessie Margo/in (LSU Press), is currently at work ence. We would especially like to thank Kai Bird, executive director of the center, and top voices-Robin Miles-to explain the _swelling pop­ on a collective biography, Most Fortunate Unfortunates: his assistant, Thad Ziolkowski, for their helpful advice at all stages of our joint planning. History of New Orleans's ]ewish Orphans' Home, 1855- ularity of audiobooks in our multi-platform world, 1946. Both hooks draw on experience. Lawyer-turned­ their importance to a biography's sales and market­ author Trestman, who has won funding from the National ing, and other ins and outs of taking the words you . fCJ . '3;0:0M!~ ORG~AN._l_ZJJ_ION______'O BIOGIIAPHERS INTERNATIONAL OI\OANIZJ

put down on the page and transforming them into the and owns Voxpertise, Ine., a studio for voiceover training drama, interpretation, and magie of an audiobook. and production.

Robin Miles, dubbed "a voice that never disappoints," Sonja D. Williams is a 2016 Phyllis Wheatley Book Award is an AudioFile Magazine Golden Voice, an Audible Hall of finalist for her biography Word Warrior: Richard Durham, Famer, the 2014 Booklist Voice of Choice, a 2009 Grammy Radio, and Freedom (University of Illinois Press), about pi­ coneratulations to Richard Dolmes finalist director, and winner of more than 40 Best-ofthe­ oneering National Radio Hall ofFame broadcast dramatist, '· Year and Earphones awards. Her chameleon-like vocal and journalist, and Chicago-based activist Richard Durham. acting ability has won accolades for nuance and variety. Williams has served as a journalist and media trainer . Her credits include: Hugo winners The Fifth Season trilo- in Africa, the Caribbean, and throughout America. Her radio documentaries have won numerous awards, includ­ Recipient OI the 2018 BIO Award gy (N.K. Jemisin) and Binti (Nnedi Okorafor); Hidden Fig­ ures (Margot Lee Shetterly); Cleopatra (Stacy Schiff); The ing three consecutive George Foster Peabody Awards for Warmth of Other Suns (Isabel Wilkerson); The Violet Significant and Meritorious Achievement and a DuPont­ Hour (Broadway); several regional productions and mu­ Columbia University Journalism Award. Williams is a pro­ seum installations; and Law & Order. Miles holds degrees fessor in the Howard University Department of Media, from Yale (B.A.) and the Yale School of Drama (M.F.A.), Journalism, and Film in Washington, O.C.

The 2018 Coaching Program

BIO would like to thank the following biographers for Carla Kaplan, Davis Distinguished Professor of American their participation in our fourth annual coaching pro­ Literature at Northeastern University and chair of the gram. These accomplished biographers are providing half­ Signs editorial board, writes on African-American and hour, one-on-one coaching sessions to those who have paid women's literature and culture. Her trade hooks include and arranged for such sessions in advance. In addition, BIO the award-winning Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters now provides a year-round mentoring service via email, and Miss Anne in Harlem: Th e White Wam en of the Black phone, or Skype. For more information, see the advertise­ Renaissance (both New York Tim es Notable Books) and ment elsewhere in this program or email Cathy Curtis at the forthcoming Something to Offend Everyone: The Life [email protected]. and Times of Jessica Mitford. Kaplan bas also edited and authored numerous scholarly hooks and editions and re­ The Coaches ceived fellowships from the NEH Public Scholar Program, Kate Buford's award-winning Native American Son: Cullman Center, DuBois Institute, Ransom and Beinecke li­ The Life and Sporting Legend of Jim Thorpe (Knopf, 2010; braries, and the Guggenheim Foundation. University of Nebraska, 2012) was a New York Tim es Editors' Justin Martin is the author of four biographies fea­ Choice. Burl Lancaster: An American Life (Knopf/Da Capo/ turing subjects ranging from a Federal Reserve chair­ Aurum UK) was named one of the best hooks of 2000 by man (Greenspan: The Man Behind the Money, 1990) to the New York Tim es. Buford has written for the New York a pioneering landscape architect (Genius of Place: The Times and other publications and has appeared on many Life of Frederick Law Olmsted, 2011). Next up is A Fierce radio and television shows. She was a commentator on Glory (September 2018), a group biography treatment of NPR's Morning Edition and APM's Marketplace from 1995 to Antietam, the pivotal Civil War battle. Martin prides him­ 2004 and is a founding co-partner, with fellow BIO member self on being a thorough researcher and reporter. Armed Abby Santamaria, of Biography by Design, LLC. with the facts, he aims to render bis subjects in novelis­ Cathy Curtis is the author of two biographies of women tic fashion and considers it the highest compliment when artists, Restless Ambition: Grace Hartigan, Painter (Oxford someone says, "Your book reads like fiction." Martin, a far­ University Press, 2015) and A Generous Vision: The mer member of the BIO Board of Directors, Jives in New Creative Life of Elaine de Kooning (OUP, 2017). Alive Still: York City. The Singular Journey of Neil Blaine, forthcoming from Wilt Swift is a biographer, a historian, and a practicing OUP in 2019, is about a leading New York painter who be­ clinical psychologist. His book Pat and Dick: The Nixons, carne a paraplegie after contracting a severe form of polio An Intimate Portrait of a Marriage (2014) was shortlist­ at age thirty-seven but battled the odds to become one of ed for the 2015 Plutarch Award and was a New York Tim es America's great watercolorists. Curtis, who bas led and David Godwin Associates Ltd. and Pantheon Editors' Choice. He is also the author of The Roosevelts and served on many BIO committees as a member of the Board the Royals (2004) and The Kennedys Amidst the Gathering of Directors, especially enjoys her work as a long-distance Storm (2008). Swift particularly enjoys discovering facts biography mentor to BIO members. A farmer BIO vice pres­ that help repair historica! reputations. A founding member ident, she was recently elected BIO president. of the BIO Board of Directors, he bas served as president, as chair of the Awards Committee, and as a member of the jl Plutarch Nomination Committee. He is also a co-founder of DGALTD the BIO mentorship program.

\iJ..·~ \iJ..·~ V' BIOCiRAPHERS INTERNATIONAL OllGANIVJION V' .BIOGRAPHERS INTERNATIONAL ÜRGANIZATION Schedule-Saturday, May 19, 2018 All panels will take place on the Concourse Level of the Graduate Center.

Registration 7:00-8:00AM CON COURSE

Buffet Breakfast Begins 7:30AM CONCOURSE '

Welcome by 2016-18 BIO President Will Swift 8:00-8:15AM CON COURSE

Breakfast Plenary Session: 8:15-9:15AM Edmund Morris and Sylvia Jukes Morris Explain Why "Dead Is Easier" CONCOURSE/ PROSHANSKY AUDITORIUM

Reviewing Biography, What Four Top Writing Multiple or What Makes 9:30-10:J0AM Writing About the Editors Look for in Lives a the Critical Cut Vietnam War D a Book Proposal IJ and Why? lll

Telling Life Stories: Biography: (Dis)Regarding What Biographers Can Resurrecting 10:45-11:45AM The Ultimate Biography D Learn From Narrative Forgotten Figures D Interdisciplinary Nonfiction IJ Approach [D

; Lunch and Keynote Address by Richard Holmes, winner of the 2018 BIO Award 12:00-1:J0PM CON COURSE

Round-Table Discussions 1:45-2:45PM SEE PAGE 10 FOR LISTING

Putting the 'I' In On the Screen and Biography and New Wrinkles in J:00-4:00PM Biography t:I on the Page l:J the Arts D Literary Law [l1

Writing About The Soul of a What to Leave in, 4:15-5:15PM The Antagonist [l1 Friendship in Biographer 1:.1 What to Leave Out IJ Biography D

Closing Reception and Announcement of the 2018 Plutarch Award Winner 5:J0-7:00PM CON COURSE

IJ Basics m Biz a Craft D Issues

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