B I O
T h i r d A n n u a l CompleatConferen Biographerc2012e
May 18–20, 2012
Davidson Conference Center, University of Southern California 3415 S. Figueroa Street, Los Angeles Hollywood Enigma Hollywood Madonna Dana Andrews Loretta Young By Carl Rollyson By Bernard F. Dick The long-awaited, complete The first comprehensive biography of the great noir actor biography of the complex who perfected the male mask of Academy Award-winning actress steely impassivity whose film career spanned over seventy years $35 hardback • $35 Ebook $35 hardback • $35 Ebook Forthcoming September 2012
Barbara Stanwyck The Miracle Woman By Dan Callahan A fascinating biography of the multi-award-winning actress who left her mark on both Hollywood and Broadway in a career that UNIVERSITY PRESS lasted over half a century OF MISSISSIPPI University Press of Mississippi $35 hardback • $35 Ebook www.upress.state.ms.us 800-737-7788 The 2012 BIO Award Recipient: Arnold Rampersad A biographer and literary critic, Rampersad is the author of the two- volume a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1986, and Life Of Langston Hughes, a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award. His Ralph Ellison: A Biography, other books include (1976), The Art and Imagination of W.E.B. DuBois Days of coauthored with Arthur Ashe (1993), and Grace: A Memoir, Jackie Robinson (1997). He is the editor of and two volumes of works by Richard The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes Wright (Library of America edition). Rampersad received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1991. Professor of English and the Sara Hart Kimball Professor in the Humanities at Stanford University, he has also taught at Rutgers, Columbia, and Princeton. His scholarly interests include nineteenth- and twentieth- century American literature, the literature of the American South, American and African-American biography, race and American literature, and the Harlem Renaissance. Rampersad is a member of the American Academy of Arts and the American Philosophical Society.
James McGrath Morris, Advisory Council Executive Director continued Conference Site John Matteson Committee William S. McFeely BIO Officers Beverly Gray, Jon Meacham Nigel Hamilton, Lois Banner chair President Nancy Milford Charles J. Shields, Heather Robinson Long Vice President Andrew Morton Brian Jay Jones, Deborah Martinson Secretary Martin J. Sherwin Béatrice Mousli T. J. Stiles BIO Board Gretchen Woelfle Carol DeBoer-Langworthy, William Taubman treasurer Terry Teachout Jonathan Eig Harriet Reisen Angelicaand: Carpenter Gayle Feldman Hans Renders Susan Compo Noel Riley Fitch Carl Rollyson Conference Planning Stephen Cooper Anne C. Heller Stacy Schiff Committee Ed Cray Kitty Kelley Will Swift Charles J. Shields, chair Susan Henry Eve LaPlante Steve Weinberg Joan Barthel Emily Hite Andrew Lownie Ellen Firsching Brown Laura Hoopes Lesley Coffin Jon Krampner BIO Advisory Council Beverly Gray Alexis O’Neill Debby Applegate, Thomas Jeffers Ann Seaman chair Deirdre Bair Louise (Lucy) W. Knight Kathleen Sheldon Douglas Brinkley Miriam Pawel Joe Woodward Robert Caro Robin Rausch Catherine Clinton Carl Rollyson BIO Award Doris Kearns Goodwin Carol Sklenicka Nomination Committee Will Swift Joan Hedrick John A. Farrell Michael Holroyd Charlotte D. Jacobs Justin Kaplan Conference Program Will Swift Eric Lax Committee Steve Weinberg David Levering Lewis Cathy Curtis Greg Daugherty
Biographers International Organization 3 Saturday, May 19 | Panels and Panelists
Show Me the Money: How to Finance and Manage the Cost of Your Work 9:00–10:30am Location: Cardinal-Gold Room Explore a wide variety of ways of financing your project, including grants and fellowships, raising funds through “chip-in” websites, and partnerships (with writers, scholars, filmmakers, and magazines). Writers’ colonies will also be discussed. Moderator such publications as the and The. She Paris recently Review, completedLos Angeles a biography Times, Scott Martelle is a veteran journalist (including a dozen The Dallas Morning News years as a staff writer) and the author of three of author Suzanne Collins and is currently working on a history books,Los Angeles each Timesof which has incorporated elements of biography of Wyclef Jean. Hoover is in the early stages of biography. His current book is a look at researching a biography of Robert Hayden, for which she the long rise and relatively quickDetroit: fall of A one Biography, of America’s great is seeking a publisher. She launched a successful Kickstarter cities. He also has written campaign to fund a residency to work on that bio at the Blood (2007) Passion: Theand Ludlow Massacre Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in 2011. and Class War in the American West (2011),The Fear aboutWithin: the Spies, Commies, and American Democracy on Trial Robin Rausch is the author of “A Partnership in Art: The first of the post-World War II Smith Act trials of American MacDowells and Their Legacy,” an essay commissioned for the Communist Party leaders. commemorative book which tellsA the Place story for the of Arts: America’s The MacDowell premier Colony artists’ Panelists residency1907-2007, program. A senior music specialist at the Library of Elizabeth Hoover is a poet, critic, and journalist. She Congress, Rausch is working on a biography of the colony’s has contributed poetry reviews and author interviews to cofounder, pianist Marian MacDowell.
Join Debby Applegate, Charles • $15,000 in cash Biographers International Organization Shields, and top-tier writers awards extends its thanks to from the U.S. and around the • Opportunities to globe at this nationally meet with publishers THE MAYBORN acclaimed annual event where and literary agents Literary Nonfiction Conference journalists, writers, readers, • Inspiration for July 21–23, 2012 students, and educators meet to practicing the craft of discuss their accomplishments, writing at the highest Grapevine, TX aspirations and angst. possible level
Biographers International Organization extends its thanks to
Phyllis McKee graphic and web design 12 Key Street Freedom to Write Fund Millis, Massachusetts 02054 508∙376∙3717 for its support of the mckeedesignweb.com 2012 Compleat Biographer Conference [email protected]
4 Biographers International Organization It Takes Two to Interview 9:00–10:30am Location: Figueroa Room Experienced biographers explain how they locate worthwhile interviewees, persuade them to talk, evaluate their credibility, and remember what they say.
Moderator Nancy Lutkehaus is professor of anthropology, gender studies, and political science at the University of Southern Kathleen Sharp is an award-winning journalist and the author California. She researches Melanesian gender and social of four acclaimed books. Her latest, , is about a man who organization, political and economic anthropology, religion, unwittingly sold a deadly biotech drug.Blood It hasFeud been optioned by and symbolic anthropology. Recent research involves the study New Regency. is her biography of legendary of women, children, gendered missions, and the maternal Universal StudiosMr. chiefand Mrs. Lew Hollywood Wasserman. Praised as “dramatic and behavior of Catholic nuns in Papua New Guinea. Lutkehaus is enthralling,” it was made into the documentary film the author of (2008), for ThinkFilm. Sharp has written for many publications,The Last including Mogul and author or Margaretcoauthor Mead: of several The Making other of books,an American including Icon and , and has contributed to (1995). She wasZaria’s a NPR’sVanity Fair The New. YorkHer Times awards Magazine include a fellowship from the GettyFire: Engendered Research Moments Scholar in in Manam 2008–2009. Ethnography UniversityMorning of Southern Edition California. Ann Seaman began writing in 1973 about the music scene in her hometown, Austin, Texas. She has written, edited, and Panelists produced materials for magazines, newspapers, TV, and film. Stephen Cooper is the editor of and the Her biographies are: Perspectives on John Huston author of Cooper discovered (“…aSwaggart: mirror The on Unauthorized the lurching Biography changes of in an Full of Life: A Biography of John Fante. and edited the manuscript of John Fante’s last book, Americanreligion, Evangelistsex and media in the late 20th century”— The Big , and co-edited ) and Chicago Hunger: Stories 1932–1959 John Fante: A Critical His biography of Fante and his edition of Tribune America’s Most (“…structured Hated Woman: The like Life a andmovie Gruesome thriller… Death Gathering. The John Fante were named Best Books of the Year. Winner ofwell Madalyn balanced Murray and O’Hair thoroughly researched”— ). Reader Los Angeles Times of an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship, Cooper is professor Seaman divides her time between Austin andSecular Los Angeles. Nation of English at California State University, Long Beach, where he enjoys teaching courses in fiction writing, literature, and film.
The Biographer and the Biopic 9:00–10:30am Location: Board Room Screenwriters and authors explore the challenges in moving from the book to the screenplay and talk about key aspects of a successful screen adaptation: infusing suspense into a narrative that unfolds over many years, creating character arcs, defining pivotal story moments that evoke larger dramas, and maintaining fidelity to the facts of a life as it was lived. Moderator franchise, and The Chronicles Their oftrue-story Narnia crime film Captain America: directed The First Jack El-Hai is the author of a biography in byAvenger. Michael Bay, is in production. McFeelyPain and andGain, Marcus are development as a pilot for HBO.The HeLobotomist, is also the writer of the writing the sequel for due in theaters in 2014. forthcoming nonfiction book as well Captain America, as other works that have been optionedThe Nazi and for the the Psychiatrist stage, film, and Bill Wheeler has written screenplays for such diverse TV. A past president of the American Society of Journalists partners as Mirage Enterprises, New Crime Films, Disney, and Authors, El-Hai has contributed to and HBO, about such eclectic subjects as the life of Timothy and many other publications.The Atlantic,He is a Wired,senior Scientific fellow Leary, the career of distance runner Stylianos Kyriakides, inAmerican the School Mind, of Journalism and Mass Communication at the and the 1971 robbery of The Pierre hotel. His film The Hoax, University of Minnesota and lives in Minneapolis. directed by Lasse Hallström and starring Richard Gere, was released by Miramax in 2007. Most recently, Wheeler adapted Mohsin Hamid’s novel for Panelists Mira Nair to direct. The film, Thewhich Reluctant completed Fundamentalist principal Stephen McFeely and Chris Markus are the screenwriters photography in New York, Delhi, and Istanbul in 2011, will behind such films as star Liev Schrieber, Kate Hudson, and Rizwan Ahmed. The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, You Kill Me,
Biographers International Organization 5 Choosing Your Subject with the Market in Mind 9:00–10:30am Location: Club Room What is your primary motive in choosing a subject? Fascination with the person? Sales potential? Something original to say? Find out what goes through biographers’ minds at this critical first step. Moderator and the National Endowment for the Arts. Currently, he is Distinguished Professor of English at Oregon State Emily Hite is writing an authorized biography of the South University. African ballerina Yvonne Mounsey, who danced with George Balanchine’s New York City Ballet from 1949 to 1958. Hite Jonathan Eig is the bestselling author of Luckiest Man: The lives in Palo Alto, California, where she writes for Stanford (2006), Life and Death of Lou Gehrig Opening Day: The Story of Jackie School of Medicine’s blog, and contributes arts features (2008), and Robinson’s First Season Get Capone: The Secret Plot that and reviews to several publications.Scope, She danced professionally (2011). Eig is a former Captured America’s Most Wanted Gangster with the Sacramento Ballet and with the Margaret Jenkins staff writer at and former executive editor The Wall Street Journal Dance Company in San Francisco. of magazine. He serves on the BIO board of directors. Chicago Ted Geltner worked as a writer and editor in the newspaper Panelists business in Florida, Pennsylvania, and California for seventeen years. He earned his doctorate in journalism in 2009 from the Tracy Daugherty is the author of four novels, four short University of Florida and now teaches journalism at Valdosta story collections, a book of personal essays, and biographies State University in Georgia. Geltner’s first book, of Donald Barthelme and Joseph Heller. Daugherty has which examines the life and career ofLast legendary King of received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation sportsthe Sports columnist Page, Jim Murray, will be published in May 2012.
Biographers International Organization
extends its Gender Studies Program & Department of History thanks to for their support of the 2012 Compleat Biographer Conference
Biographers International Organization Biographers International Organization
extends its thanks to extends its thanks to our Sarah Baldwin affiliate members EDITORIAL SERVICES • University of Mary Washington • WSK Management, LLC • Mayborn School of Journalism
6 Biographers International Organization Beyond Disneyland: Research Opportunities in Southern California 9:00–10:30am Location: Alumni Room Southern California is home to major libraries and archives specializing in subjects that include the visual arts (Getty Research Institute) and British and American history and literature (The Huntington Library) as well as film and television history. Prominent local archivists provide an overview of their institutions’ collections and explain how to make the most of your research time. Moderator Special Collections; she also has held several positions in the Charles E. Young Research Library Department of Special Beatrice Mousli published her first article in 1994, in the Collections. During 1997–98, she was the archivist at the French literary magazine . Since then, she has recreated Pacifica Radio Archives. A certified archivist, she earned a the literary and publishingDigraphe world of the years 1900-1950 master’s of library science degree from UCLA. through essays and biographies, including (1998), (2005), and Valery (2010). Larbaud In Los John H. Laslett is professor emeritus of history at UCLA. Angeles,Max she hasJacob found ways to Philippe combine Soupault her interest in literary His research interests include U.S. history; American labor, history and her love for her new city, while building bridges social movements, and immigration; and Euro-American between the two places to which she thinks she now belongs. history. His books include She teaches French language and literature at USC and is the Colliers Across the Sea: A Comparative founding director of the USC Francophone Research and Study of Class Formation in Scotland and the American Midwest, 1830- Resource Center. 1924; Labor and the Left: A Study of Socialist and Radical Influences in the American Labor Movement,and (with1881–1924; Mary TheTyler) Workingman in American Life: Selected Readings; History of the ILGWU Panelists in Los Angeles, 1907–1988. Sandra Aguilar directs the Warner Bros Entertainment Mark Quigley is an access archivist for the UCLA Film & historical paper archive—memos, photographic stills, music Television Archive. His projects include the UCLA Preserved scores, and production records—at the USC School of Silent Animation Online Portal (http://animation.library.ucla.edu/) Cinematic Arts. She began her professional career over a decade and the reference publication Quigley holds an MFAHallmark from the Hall UCLA of Fame: School The First of ago as film curator for the USC Moving Image Archive. Aguilar 50 Years. has nine years of film industry experience, including seven years Theater, Film and Television, and serves as adjunct faculty for at George Lucas’s company, Industrial Light and Magic, where the UCLA Moving Image Archive Studies (MIAS) program. she archived over 150,000 visual effects elements and provided Andrew Wulf is curator of the Ronald Reagan Presidential reference images for CG artists working on features and Library and Museum. He holds an MA in art history and commercials. She earned screen credit for her work as ILM’s museum studies from USC and is a PhD candidate in museum liaison to NASA on the feature film Space Cowboys. studies at the University of Leicester (UK). His dissertation Julie Graham has been a special collections librarian at examines the genesis of exhibition culture in American foreign the University of California, Los Angeles, since 1996. She is policy and addresses U.S. cultural exhibitions in Europe, Latin currently archival collections processing librarian, responsible America, and the Middle East from 1955 to 1975. Wulf began for arrangement, description, and reference for archival his museum career at the Victoria and Albert Museum in and special collections in the performing arts. From 1999 London and has worked at the Skirball Cultural Center, USC to 2005, Graham served as the head of the Arts Library Fisher Museum of Art, and USC Libraries Special Collections.
Reception and Book Signings 5:30–7:30pm Location: Vineyard Room • Network with agents, editors, and panelists. Meet members of BIO’s Board. Chat with other biographers.
Biographers International Organization 7 Legal Liabilities for Biographers 10:45am–12:15pm Location: Cardinal-Gold Room When do you need permissions, and how do you obtain them? How can you avoid making potentially libelous statements? What can happen if you’re the target of a lawsuit? The panel tackles these and other pertinent legal subjects. Please note that the panelists’ comments are provided for information purposes only and should not be construed as formal legal advice to be applied to any specific situation. Moderator University Law School, teaching a course on the law of defamation, privacy, and publicity. Cathy Curtis, a former cultural reporter and art and dance critic at the has written for numerous Jonathan Kirsch is a Los Angeles attorney specializing publications, includingLos Angeles Times, and the in publishing law and intellectual property. He is also the Art .News, Self-employed Arts + Architecture, as a copywriter/ author of thirteen books, including substantiveDictionary of editorAmerican (dba History Textual), she recently edited His nextThe book, Harlot to by be the published Side of the Best-Kept inRoad: 2013, Forbidden is a biography Tales of the ofBible. an early figure in the Jewish armed Secret: UCI and the Development Curtis ofis Contemporaryworking on aArt biography in Southern of resistance to Nazi Germany. Kirsch is book editor of GraceCalifornia, Hartigan 1964–1971. (1922–2008), a leading second-generation an adjunct professor on the faculty of the ProfessionalThe Jewish Abstract Expressionist painter who led a tumultuous life in PublishingJournal, Institute at New York University, and a three-time New York in the 1950s. president of PEN Center U.S.A.
Susan F. paterno, director of the journalism program at Panelists Chapman University in Orange, California, has more than Jean-paul Jassy, of Bostwick & Jassy LLP, has represented 20 years of experience as a reporter, writer, and columnist, media and entertainment companies and others with free including nearly a decade on the staff of the Orange County press, free speech, and copyright concerns for more than She is co-author, with M. L. Stein, of Register. The Newswriter’s a decade, litigating cases before the U.S. Supreme Court Handbook: An Introduction to Journalism and Talk Straight, Listen and the Supreme Court of California. He was selected by Paterno wrote an article for Carefully: The Art of Interviewing. his peers for inclusion in ® about turmoil at the American Journalism Review Santa Barbara in the field of First AmendmentThe Best Lawyerslaw. Jassy in Americahas served2011 as an under publisher Wendy McCaw and was personally News-Press adjunct professor at the UC Irvine School of Law, teaching sued by the newspaper for libel and “trade disparagement.” media law and First Amendment law, and at Southwestern Paterno won the case.
From Infatuation to Footnote: Archival and Other Research 10:45am–12:15pm Location: Figueroa Room Biographers discuss how they use archival research as well as more unusual methods to give substance and texture to their subjects’ lives and surroundings. Moderator of the 1920s and ’30s, and creating A former editor of Henry is Theemeritus New Yorker. professor of Miriam pawel is the author of a forthcoming biography of journalismJournalism at California History, State University, Northridge. Cesar Chavez. Her previous book, The Union of Their Dreams— a Thomas Jeffers is the author of a 2010 biography of narrativePower, Hope history and Struggle of the in UnitedCesar Chavez’s Farm WorkersFarm Worker told Movement, through Norman Podhoretz, a project that grew out of his work editing He has also published two eight protagonists in the struggle, was a and The Norman Podhoretz Reader. Notable Book of 2009.Los Angeles Pawel Times spent books of literary criticism—on the Victorian Samuel Butler twenty-fiveSan Francisco Chronicleyears as an award-winning journalist at and on the Anglo-American Bildungsroman—plus many and the Newsday essays in journals, including the the Los Angeles Times. and . Jeffers isYale a literature Review, professorHudson Review,at Commentary, Raritan Panelists Marquette University. Jason Roberts is the author of the forthcoming T Susan Henry has spent three decades writing about a nonfiction narrative of intertwined liveswo in previously unrecognized women who made significant nineteenth-centuryShipwrecks, America and Japan. His previous book, contributions to American journalism during the eighteenth, a biography of the blind traveler James nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. Her 2012 book, HolmanA Sense of (1786–1857),the World, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the international First Book Anonymous consistsin Their Own of intertwined Names: Doris biographies E. Fleischman, of Ruth women Hale andwho Guardian Jane Grant, Prize. Roberts is also the winner of the Van Zorn Prize for were their husbands’ uncredited partners in remarkable media short fiction and a contributor to the ventures: helping found the field of public relations, writing and other publications.McSweeney’s, The Believer, one of the most popular and influential newspaper columns Village Voice,
8 Biographers International Organization Writing about Sex and Love 10:45am–12:15pm Location: Board Room Contemporary biographers strive for tasteful frankness about sex, including the role (or absence) of sex in a subject’s life, sexual orientation, and the relationship (if any) of sex to love. Do your subject’s achievements determine the best way to deal with sex and love? What is involved in writing well about this aspect of life, and what is gained by focusing on it? Moderator York City whose memoir inspired a 1963 film starring Shelley Winters. Applegate is chair of BIO’s Advisory Council. Ed Cray is the author or editor of twenty books over a bloody long career. He has written three biographies. In the Nigel Hamilton is president of BIO. His biographies include first, of General of the Army George C. Marshall, the subject American Caesars: Franklin Roosevelt to George W. Bush, JFK: Reckless probably did not have consistent sex with his ailing first wife; (which was turned into a TV miniseries), Youth The Brothers in the second, the subject, Chief Justice Earl Warren, and his (about the novelists Heinrich and Thomas Mann), a Mann wife raised five children and stayed married until death did two-volume life of Bill Clinton, and a three-volume life of them part; and in the third, a biography of Woody Guthrie, Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery, which won the 1981 the subject had at least eight children, borrowed money for Whitbread Award and the Templer Medal for Military History. two abortions, and enjoyed an abundance of sexual favors. Hamilton is also the author of and He is currentlyBiography: working A Brief History on How To Do Biography: A Primer. Commander Panelists in Chief: FDR at War. Lois Rudnick is professor emerita of American studies at the Debby Applegate is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning University of Massachusetts, where she served as chair of the biography American Studies Department for 26 years. She is the author The. It Mostwas alsoFamous named Man onein America: of the The best Biography books of Henry 2006 and editor of books, essays, and articles on the cultural history byWard Beecher of New Mexico and on American modernism, among them, The New York Times Book Review, The Washington magazine, Post, andSan FranciscoNPR’s Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, American Heritage her award-winning Applegate has taught American history at Yale and Utopian Vistas: The Mabel Dodge Luhan House Fresh Air. (1966) and Wesleyan universities. She is working on a biography of Polly and the American Counterculture The Suppressed Memoirs Adler, the notorious Prohibition-era brothel keeper in New of Mabel Dodge Luhan: Sex, (forthcoming Syphilis, and Psychoanalysis in fall 2012). in the Making of Modern American Culture Blogging to Boost Sales 10:45am–12:15pm Location: Club Room Blogging about your project or book creates a paradoxical situation: Your readers may become valuable sources, and you might attract the notice of agents or publishers, but divulging content may eat into your sales. On the other hand, if your blog isn’t juicy, few will read it. This panel answers the question, “To blog or not to blog?” Moderator “Beverly in Movieland,” which covers movies, moviemaking, and growing up Hollywood-adjacent: www.beverlyinmovieland.com. Laura Hoopes is the Halstead-Bent Professor of Biology and Molecular Biology at Pomona College in Claremont, Scott Martelle is a veteran journalist (including a dozen California. In spring 2011, she released years as a staff writer) and the author of three Los Angeles Times , a memoir about growing up in theBreaking Eisenhower Through years,the Spiral history books, each of which has incorporated elements of beingCeiling recruited to science by Sputnik, falling in love with biography. His current book is a look at Detroit: A Biography, DNA, and crashing into gender barriers in molecular biology. the long rise and relatively quick fall of one of America’s great She is writing a dual biography of Joan Steitz and Jennifer cities. He also has written Blood Passion: The Ludlow Massacre Doudna. Hoopes, who is in the creative writing MFA program (2007) and and Class War in the American West The Fear Within: at San Diego State, has published in (2011), about the Spies, Commies, and American Democracy on Trial and The Christian Science Monitor, first of the post-World War II Smith Act trials of American The Chaffin Journal, North Carolina Literary Review. Communist Party leaders. Panelists Mark Sarvas is the founder and host of the internationally renowned literary blog The Elegant Variation. A Beverly Gray, who developed 170 low-budget features for Top 10 Literary Blog, a Best of the Web selection,Guardian a B-movie maven Roger Corman, is the author of the definitive, Top L.A.Forbes Blog, The Elegant Variation has bestselling biography, beenLos Angeles featured Magazine on NPR and in Roger Corman:. The paperback An Unauthorized edition Biography has been of and numerous otherThe publications. New York Times, Sarvas Newsday, is also The tastefullythe Godfather retitled of Indie Filmmaking aNew member Republic of the National Book Critics Circle and a novelist Roger Corman: Blood-Sucking Gray has alsoVampires, published Flesh- whose debut, was published in more than a Eating Cockroaches, and Driller Killers. . She is updatingRon dozen languages.Harry, He Revised, is a member of PEN American Center herHoward: Corman From bookMayberry while to the also Moon focusing . . . and on Beyond her popular blog, and a contributing editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Biographers International Organization 9 The Stars Appear: Stars, Celebrity, and Biography 10:45am–12:15pm Location: Alumni Room How do biographers effectively address the iconic status of their subjects and the mythology surrounding them? Panelists discuss how their subjects’ social significance, public image, and popularity affect aspects of research, writing, sales, and marketing.
Susan Carney); and Moderator Burn the Ice: How the Butch Cassidy and the Lesley Coffin is the author of the forthcoming biography, Sundance Kid of (with Bartending Kirk SurvivedDriscoll, Drunks, Steve DeWinter,Cheaters, Porno and Stars Leslie and She is currently working Bertram-Crane).Armed Robbers He also contributed to onLew Ayres: the authorized Hollywood’s biography Conscientious of characterObjector. actor Bruno Kirby. part of the series.Hal Ashby: Interviews, Coffin recently completed a master’s degree in biographical Conversations with Filmmakers studies with an emphasis on star studies at the Gallatin School Brian Jay Jones, self-confessed pop culture junkie, is working for Individualized Studies, New York University. on the first biography of Muppets creator Jim Henson (1936– 1990), scheduled for release on Henson’s birthday, September 24, 2013. Jones received the Washington Irving Medal for Panelists Literary Excellence from the St. Nicholas Society of New Sarah Churchwell is professor of American Literature and York for After earning an Public Understanding of the Humanities at the University English literatureWashington degree Irving: fromAn American the University Original. of New Mexico, of East Anglia (UK), specializing in twentieth- and twenty- he briefly managed a comic-book store. More recently, he has first-century culture, contemporary literature, popular culture, worked as a speechwriter and public policy analyst, serving and biography. She is a commentator for and elected officials at three levels of government, including nearly a has contributed to many publications, includingThe New Statesman decade at the U.S. Senate. Jones lives in Maryland. Theand New York . Times Book Review, The Financial Times, Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire Richard Schickel is a film historian, critic, professor, and Her book, is a comprehensive documentary filmmaker. His thirty-seven books include study of biographiesThe Many Lives of Marilyn of Marilyn and Monroe, their social significance. Churchwell’s next book, Matinee Idylls: and Reflections biographies on the ofMovies, Woody Intimate Allen, Strangers: Marlon The Brando, Culture Careless People: will F.be Scott published Fitzgerald in and 2013. the of Celebrity, Autumn that Inspired The Great Gatsby, James Cagney, Bette Davis, Walt Disney, Clint Eastwood, Robert Crane, cowriter of the TV movie is Douglas Fairbanks, Cary Grant, D.W. Griffith, Elia Kazan, and a journalist and biographer. He has coauthoredHostage for a Day, Martin Scorsese. His documentaries include Emmy-nominated (with Christopher Fryer); Jack Nicholson: The Early Years (with FryerBruce and Dern:Dern); Things I’ve The Men Whoand Made the Movies, Life Goes to the Movies, Schickel’s Minnelli honors on Said But Probably Shouldn’t Have (withMy Tom Life includeMinnelli, a GuggenheimElia Kazan: Fellowship,A Director’s Journey. a British Film Institute Book Mankiewicz);as a Mankiewicz: An Insider’s Journey Through (with Hollywood Dave Thomas and Prize, and a Maurice Bessy Award for film criticism. SCTV: Behind the Scenes Ex-Wives, Angry Children, and Other Questionable Sources 2:15–3:45pm Location: Cardinal-Gold Room Veteran biographers explain how to navigate the tricky terrain of your subject’s family and friends.
Moderator Charles J. Shields is the author of and Mockingbird: Aselected Portrait Jon KraMpner is the author of inof Harper2011 as Lee a And So It Goes:Notable Kurt BookVonnegut: and A a Life, Creamy and Crunchy:which An will NotableNew Nonfiction York Times Book. He is a co-founderWashington and vice beInformal published History in of November. Peanut Butter, His the previous All-American books Food, are presidentPost of BIO. Shields is also associate director of the and Female Chappell Great Lives Lecture Series at the University of Brando: The Legend of Kim Stanley HisThe next Man book in the will Shadows: be a seriesFred Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Before turning ofCoe biographical and the Golden profiles Age of Television. of people who had the courage to to adult trade nonfiction, Shields taught high school and stand up to Bush and Cheney. Krampner lives in Los Angeles freelanced young adult biographies and histories. and is sarcastic in three languages. Carol Sklenicka is currently writing Panelists Her previous book, Much Love: A Life of wasAlice namedAdams. one of the 10 Best BooksRaymond of Carver:2009 by A Writer’s Life, Susan Compo is the author of which was The New York Warren Oates: A Wild Life, and was a finalist for the PEN USA Literary named Best Movie Book of the Year (2010) by Philip French in AwardTimes Book for ReviewResearch Nonfiction. Sklenicka earned a doctorate (UK). She has also written three novels and taught in The Observer at Washington University in St. Louis. She has managed a the writing programs at the University of Southern California household for her two children and husband, poet R. M. and California Institute of the Arts. Her career as a rock music Ryan, and taught literature and writing at the Milwaukee journalist provided a good foundation for biography. Although Institute of Art & Design and Marquette University. She lives Warren Oates has been a tough act to follow, Compo is currently in San Francisco and Jenner, California. at work on a book about green/natural burial.
10 Biographers International Organization Pursuing Hollywood’s Past 2:15–3:45pm Location: Figueroa Room Veteran biographers and film historians share their research secrets, explaining how to locate inside information about Old Hollywood and its brightest stars. Moderator and four other nonfiction books, including her latest, for which she was namedJoseph P. Heather Robinson Long spent fifteen years in the museum anKennedy Academy Presents: of HisMotion Hollywood Pictures Years, Arts and Sciences Scholar. and education sectors in Australia before moving to Los A writer for and a judge for the Angeles in 2009. She has recently completed the biography of Book AwardsVanity in biography, Fair Beauchamp hasLos also Angeles written Times and Claire Adams Mackinnon, a silent movie actress who thrived produced documentaries. in the early years of the film industry before enjoying a happy, “Hollywood” ending in Australia. Long is a research associate James Curtis spent twenty years as a senior executive in the in the History Department of the Natural History Museum computer and health care industries before turning to writing of Los Angeles. She was short-listed for the inaugural Hazel full time in 2004. He is the author of W.C. Fields: A Biography, Rowley Literary Fellowship for Australian biographers in 2012. which was awarded the Special Jury Prize by the Theatre Library Association and named a Notable Book of the Year. Curtis is also the authorNew of York Times Panelists Spencer and Tracy: A Biography; Lois Banner is a professor of history and gender studies at James Whale: A New World of and Gods the and editor Monsters; of threeBetween other booksFlops: A the University of Southern California. Her books on women onBiography related of subjects.Preston Sturges; He lives in Brea, California. and gender include (1984). Her biographies Steven J. Ross is professor of history at the University of include American Beauty (2005) and Southern California and co-director of the Los Angeles Institute Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Their Circle (2011). for the Humanities. He is the author of Banner’sMM Personal: book From the Private Archives of Marilyn Monroe a definitive (2002), Movies and American Society biography, willMarilyn: be published The Passion in July. and Inthe 2005,Paradox, she won Working-Class(1998), and Hollywood: Silent Film and the Shaping of Class the Bode-Pearson Prize for lifetime achievement from the in America Workers On the Edge: (1985). Work, Ross’s Leisure, most and Politics recent American Studies Association. Banner is a past president of book,in Industrializing Cincinnati, 1788–1890 the American Studies Association and the Pacific Coast branch Hollywoodreceived the Left Academy and Right: ofHow Motion Movie Stars Picture Shaped Arts American and of the American Historical Association. Sciences’Politics, Film Scholars Award—the academic equivalent of an Cari Beauchamp is the award-winning author of Oscar®—and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood,
The Gifts, Challenges, and Dangers of Chronology 2:15–3:45pm Location: Board Room While a life is necessarily lived chronologically, biographers may begin their narratives at any point and freely move backward and forward in time. Must chronology be the driver of narrative force, or can a story organized in a different way still be compelling? What is the hardest aspect of using a basic chronological structure? What is gained and what is lost? Moderator the House, and (2011), a biography of theClarence great Darrow: American Attorney defense For Thelawyer—winner Damned of Louise (Lucy) W. Knight is an author, historian, and the 2011 Book Prize for Biography. nonprofit consultant with a background in journalism and Los Angeles Times nonprofit administration. Her first book was the prize-winning Jim Newton is the editor-at-large and a columnist for the Los biography (2005), where he has worked since 1989. Before that, he Angeles Times, about the formativeCitizen: Jane years Addams of theand progressivethe Struggle for social Democracy activist. In was a reporter for the and, in 1985 Atlanta Journal-Constitution 2010, she published the first full-life and 1986, served as the clerk to columnist James New York Times biography about AddamsJane Addams: in thirty-seven Spirit in Action, years. Knight has Reston. Newton is the author of two critically acclaimed, published essays and reviews in best-selling biographies, The New York Times Book Review, (2006) and Justice for All: Earl Warren and(2011). the Nation He He Made, Eisenhower: The White House Years The Wall and Street on Journal, the Women’s Women’s MediaReview ofCenter Books, website.the Chicago Tribune, The is also an educator, serving as a senior fellow in the School of Nation, Public Affairs at UCLA. Panelists Tom Nolan is a frequent contributor to the arts pages of He has written for dozens of newspapersThe and John Aloysius Farrell has had a prize-winning career as magazinesWall Street Journal. over the years, including a newspaperman, most notably for and Ploughshares, Playboy, Los Angeles The Denver Post The and the He is currently the congressional correspondent Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, Rolling Stone, Boston Globe. He is the author of for Farrell is the author of Oxford American. Ross Macdonald: A Biography National Journal. Tip O’Neill and the (2009) and (2011). (2001), a biography of the late Speaker of Artie Shaw, King of the Clarinet: His Life and Times Democratic Century
Biographers International Organization 11 Exploiting the Power of Social Media 2:15–3:45pm Location: Club Room Publishers have beefed up their marketing muscle on the Internet and are practically insisting that authors self-promote using social media. You want to do your part, but you can’t see yourself constantly tweeting about the more provocative aspects of your subject. Find out how to create effective and professional “reader engagement.”
Moderator Oline Eaton is the social networking chair for BIO and the host of the podcast on the New Books Kathleen Sheldon is a historian with a research affiliation Network. ANew graduate Books inof Biography the University of Chicago with a at the UCLA Center for the Study of Women. She wrote master’s degree in writing biography and a concentration in the (2005, tabloids, Eaton has written extensively on the subjects of reissuedHistorical in paper Dictionary as of Women in Sub-Saharan Africa ), celebrities, gossip, and adventure. A regular contributor to which includes briefThe biographies A to Z of Women of nearly in Sub-Saharan 300 women, Africa and CheekyChicago.com, she has written for TheGloss.com and edited entries on women for the six-volume Eaton is currently at work on a biography of (2011). She is working on a book basedDictionary on her of great-African JackieContrary Onassis. Magazine. Follow her at findingjackie.comand @oline_eaton. aunt’sBiography diary, and published “ ‘No more cookies or cake now, C’est la guerre’: An American Nurse in Turkey, 1919 to 1920,” penny C. Sansevieri is the founder and CEO of Author in in 2010. Marketing Experts, Inc. (AME) and the author of five books, Social Sciences and Missions including which has been called the “road map to publishingGet Published success.” Today, AME (www.amarketingexpert.com) is Panelists the creator of The Virtual Author Tour™, which strategically Martin Beck, social media and reader engagement editor works with social networking sites, blogs, Twitter, Pinterest, for the is leading the efforts to cultivate LinkedIn, YouTube, and relevant websites to push an author’s Los Angeles Times, Times’ community and connect with its audience in new ways. message into the virtual community, positioning the author Working across the newsroom, he is helping journalists in his or her market. In the past two years, AME’s creative identify effective ways to use social media networks and other marketing strategies have helped land eleven books on emerging technologies. During his twenty-two years with the bestseller list. The New he has worked in a wide range of newsroom positions, York Times includingTimes, sportswriter, copy editor, page designer, technology editor, and Web deputy. Beck (@latimesbeck on Twitter) is a graduate of the University of California, Irvine, and the University of Missouri School of Journalism.
Two Leading Literary Agents’ View of the Changing World of Publishing 2:15–3:45pm Location: Alumni Room Leading literary agents examine trends in publishing that relate to biography.
Moderator issues affecting writers. Lownie is a member of the Association of Authors’ Agents and the Society of Authors, serves on the Devra Hall Levy is working on a biography of BIO board, and was until recently the literary agent of PEN. In jazz and Broadway maestro LutherSeeking Henderson. Harmony, Known as Duke 1998, he founded The Biographers Club—a dining society in Ellington’s “classical arm,” Henderson was Lena Horne’s musical the UK for biographers and people who promote biography— director and the man behind the music of many celebrated and The Biographers’ Club Prize, which supports first-time performers and shows. Levy has written feature articles for biographers. Lownie is writing a life of the spy Guy Burgess. national magazines and more than a dozen books. With a background in music, entertainment, and publicity, she is sought Alan Nevins started his career working for agent Irving “Swifty” after as a writer of narrative press releases, executive and artist Lazar and now owns the Lazar Agency. After a stint with profiles, and liner notes. Past lives include director of corporate Michael Ovitz’s AMG, Nevins created a literary division at The communications for a software company, and freelance Firm. In 2008, Nevins’ agency, Renaissance Literary & Talent, developmental and technical editor for Microsoft Press. became independent again, representing a long list of writers and estates, including those of George Axelrod, Elia Kazan, Arthur Rubinstein, and Cornell Woolrich. A major force in biographies Panelists and memoirs, Nevins represents, among others: Tony Curtis, Andrew Lownie has run his own literary agency since 1988. Goldie Hawn, Barbara Sinatra, illusionist Criss Angel, Don As an author, most notably of a biography of John Buchan Felder of the Eagles, David and Julie Nixon Eisenhower, the and a literary companion to Edinburgh, he understands the rapper Taboo, Marlee Matlin, and Lauren Bacall.
12 Biographers International Organization The Dotted Line: Contract Issues for Writers 4:00–5:30pm Location: Cardinal-Gold Room You finally interested a publisher in your book. Now what? This panel discusses whether you need a lawyer’s or an agent’s advice, explains the meaning of typical boilerplate language, and equips you with questions you should ask.
Moderator Jill Marr is an agent at the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency. She has a strong Internet and media background; Greg Daugherty is the executive editor of before joining the publishing industry in 2001, she worked in He previously held senior editing positions atConsumer Reports. radio and television. She wrote features and ads for and and other publications. As a freelancer, heTime, has Reader’s written continues to write book ads for publishing houses. MarrPages is forDigest, publications such as interested in voice-driven commercial fiction, with an emphasis and the print andThe online New Yorkeditions Times, of National Geographic on mysteries and thrillers, women’s commercial fiction, and Traveler, His books include Smithsonian historical fiction. She is also looking for non-fiction in the DaughertyMagazine. conducts a blog onYou magazine Can Write history,For Magazines. “When areas of self-help, inspirational, cookbooks, memoir (she Editors Were Gods.” especially loves travel and foodie memoirs), history, current events, health and nutrition, pop culture, humor, and music. Panelists Jennifer pooley is an independent development editor and Jonathan Kirsch is an attorney specializing in publishing content producer. A former senior editor with HarperCollins law and intellectual property. He is also the author of thirteen imprints William Morrow and Harper Perennial, she published books, including an eclectic list emphasizing literary fiction, memoir, and The Harlot by the Side of the Road: Forbidden His next book, to be published in 2013, is a debut talent. Acquisitions included Willy Vlautin’s Tales of the Bible. biography of an early figure in the Jewish armed resistance to and Sarah Hall’s The Motel Nazi Germany. Kirsch is book editor of an andLife, Northline, Lean on Pete; Marjorie Hart’s Daughters of the North The Jewish Journal, adjunct professor on the faculty of the Professional Publishing DanielHow James to Paint Brown’s a Dead Man; Summerand at Tiffany; Institute at New York University, and a three-time president Marina Palmer’s The Indifferent andStars Michael Above Zadoorian’sUnder a Flaming of PEN Center U.S.A. Sky; In LosKiss Angeles, and Tango; Pooley continues to discover, partnerThe Leisure with, Seeker. and champion writers across platforms.
How Dare You? How to Research the Unauthorized Celebrity Bio and Live to Tell the Tale 4:00–5:30pm Location: Figueroa Room If you plan to write about a famous living person, people close to your subject will likely insist that you have no right to intrude on his or her privacy. This session will clue you in on what to do next. Moderator life story of music legend Bob Dylan. A Southern California native, he currently lives near Memphis, Tennessee. Beverly Gray, who developed 170 low-budget features for B-movie maven Roger Corman, is the author of the definitive, Andrew Morton is a leading authority on royalty and bestselling biography, modern celebrity. His groundbreaking 1992 biography, Diana: Roger Corman: The paperback An Unauthorized edition Biography has been of revealed the unhappy personal life of the late Her True Story, tastefullythe Godfather retitled of Indie Filmmaking. Diana, Princess of Wales, and changed forever the way the Roger Corman: Blood-Sucking Gray has alsoVampires, published Flesh- world looked at the British royal family. It was only after Eating Cockroaches, and Driller Killers. She is updatingRon Diana’s tragic death in 1997 that Morton revealed that his herHoward: Corman From bookMayberry while to the also Moon focusing . . . and on Beyond. her popular blog, explosive biography was written with her full collaboration. “Beverly in Movieland,” which covers movies, moviemaking, and Morton has gone on to write bestselling biographies of growing up Hollywood-adjacent: www.beverlyinmovieland.com. Monica Lewinsky, Madonna, Tom Cruise, and Angelina Jolie. He is the winner of numerous awards, including Author of the Panelists Year from the British Book Awards. David Stenn graduated from Yale. He is the author of Dennis McDougal is a career journalist who has worked and Clara for a variety of publications (including the bothBow: Runnin’edited Wildby JacquelineBombshell: Onassis. The Life and Death his featureof Jean Harlow, film and ), authored tenLos Angelesbooks, Times, and was documentary based on his Girlarticle 27, “It Happened Thecalled New “L.A.’s York Times, No. 1 muckraker”TV Guide during the 1990s. Author of One Night…At M-G-M,”Vanity premiered Fair at the Sundance Film three bestselling biographies—about Universal Studios chief Festival. Series television credits include Lew Wasserman, publisher Otis Chandler, and, currently, Hill forStreet which Blues; he Beverly and actor Jack Nicholson—McDougalLos Angeles Times is now at work on the servesHills, 90210; as supervising producer.Boardwalk Empire,
Biographers International Organization 13 Creating a Beautifully Written Biography 4:00–5:30pm Location: Board Room When we say that a biography is beautifully written, what do we mean? The panel will explore this perennially elusive but fascinating question. Panelists will share favorite passages and discuss how they seek to achieve beauty in their own writing. Moderator other publications, and has been a commentator on NPR’s and American Public Media’s . Will Swift is a presidential biographer, a royal historian, and Morning Edition Marketplace a practicing clinical psychologist. He is currently working on David Groff is an editor, poet, and writer with nearly a biography of the Nixon marriage. Swift’s first thirty years’ experience in book publishing. Formerly a senior bookPat and was Dick, editor at Crown/Random House, in addition to being an The Roosevelts and the Royals: Franklin and Eleanor, (2004).the King independent editor for authors, publishers, and literary agents, Heand Queenis also of the England, author and of the Friendship that Changed History he also scouts, develops, and edits new projects for Rob The Kennedys Amidst(2008), the anGathering account Storm: of Weisbach Creative Management, which provides development, theA Thousand Kennedy Days family’s in London, emergence 1938–1940 on the world stage. Swift is a representation, and strategic career management for writers, member of the BIO board of directors. visual artists, designers, and editors. Anne C. Heller is the author of Panelists a Notable BookAyn and Rand and the World She BestMade, BookNew of York the Times Year (2009). She was formerlySan Francisco managing Chronicle Kate Buford’s biography editor of fiction editor at and (2010) wasNative a American Son: TheEditors’ Life and Choice Sporting and executiveThe Antiocheditor Review,of editorial projects at EsquireCondé NastRedbook, andLegend a winnerof Jim Thorpe of awards from theNew Society York Times for American Baseball Publications. Heller has written for Research (SABR) and the Professional Football Researchers online, and other publications.Esquire, Lear’s, In Vanity 2011, Fair, she The Association (PFRA). Her biography wasWall aStreet visiting Journal professor of American literature at Bennington was named a best book of 2000 byBurt Lancaster: An American College. Heller is a member of the BIO board of directors. Life and the . BufordThe New has York written Times, Thefor She lives in New York City. Washington Post, Los Angeles andTimes among The New York Times, Film Comment, Bluegrass Unlimited,
Biography and Book Technology: Book Trailers 4:00–5:30pm Location: Alumni Room Some book trailers simply preview the content. Others create a cliff hanger. In addition to determining the best approach, you need to know what trailers cost and what to expect for your money. Before you say “Action!” get the lowdown from do-it-yourselfers and an L.A. book trailer producer. Moderator more than forty books—including biographies of Marilyn Monroe, Lillian Hellman, Martha Gellhorn, Norman Mailer, Joe Woodward recently published Rebecca West, Susan Sontag, and Jill Craigie, and studies of He writes Alivea blog Inside on thisthe Wreck: work A ( American culture, genealogy, children’s biography, film, and Biography of Nathanael). West. A two-time Los Angeles Press ClubThe Award literary criticism—and more than 500 articles on American winner,Nathanael he West has Project published nonfiction in the and European literature and history. Rollyson is working on and and fiction Los Angeles in Times, San to be published Francisco Chronicle, Poets & Writers, andPassages elsewhere. North, inAmerican February Isis: 2013The Life on and the Death fiftieth of Sylvia anniversary Plath, of Plath’s death. WoodwardZone 3, The Dos received Passos anReview, MFA Southern at Brooklyn Indiana College. Review, He lives in Rollyson (www.carlrollyson.com) is a member of the BIO board Los Angeles. His website is www.joewoodward.net. of directors. Chris Roth grew up in Los Angeles. Together with his Panelists brother Steve, he created countless home videos mimicking Jennifer philips started out as a newspaper reporter but now the movies they rented from the Topanga Canyon Video Store. splits her professional energy between healthcare innovation Before graduating from Parsons School of Design with a projects (the day job that pays the bills) and writing, especially BFA in illustration, Roth created vivid imagery for books, for children. She has written three juvenile biographies ( magazines, and album covers, and storyboarded commercials Elijah for MTV Networks. He eventually storyboarded more than Lovejoy’s Fight for Freedom, Robert and Wadlow: The Unique Life of the Boy Who 60 commercials for MTV, MTV2, and VH1, two of which Became the World’s) Tallest and has Man, anotherNina one Kosterina: in the works. A Young Philips Communist were nominated for an Emmy Award. In January 2011, he in Stalinist Russia (www.noseinthebookpublishing.com) is “up to her elbows” in paper- founded The Other House (www.theotherhouse.com), a creative craft projects while writing two how-to books on assignment development and production company with six partners and for a children’s educational publisher. their extended networks of creative professionals. Carl Rollyson is professor of journalism at Baruch College, The City University of New York. He has published
14 Biographers International Organization Sunday, May 20 | Master Classes & Tour Widening Your Book’s Reach: Adapting Your Biographies for Young Adult Readers 9:00–11:30 a.m. Location: Figueroa Room This workshop will guide you in identifying a target audience, choosing appropriate subjects, employing writing styles that engage young readers, understanding essential curriculum connections, writing a compelling proposal, finding a publisher, and developing specialized marketing techniques to reach your intended readers.
Angelica Shirley Carpenter is curator emerita of the books for children, including Arne Nixon Center for the Study of Children’s Literature at and The Recess Queen,. The Worst Best Friend, The Kite That Bridged Two Nations California State University, Fresno, and the author or coauthor Susan Goldman Rubin has been an instructor in the UCLA of award-winning biographies for young people, including Extension Writers’ Program for more than two decades and Frances Hodgson Burnett, L. Frank Baum, and Lewis Carroll. is the author of more than 50 books for young readers, Alexis O’Neill is an instructor at the UCLA Extension including Writers’ Program and the author of several award-winning Music and was IT: Young Leonard Bernstein; Andy Warhol: Pop . Art Painter; The Cat with the Yellow Star: Coming of Age in Terezin
Literary Biography 9:00–11:30 a.m. Location: Club Room
Tracy Daugherty ( ) Charles J. Shields ( ) see panelist biography on page 6 see panelist biography on page 10
Alternatives to Traditional Publishing 9:00–11:30 a.m. Location: Board Room
Carl Rollyson ( ) see panelist biography on page 14
Solid Approaches to Research 9:00–11:30 a.m. Location: Alumni Room
James McGrath Morris, BIO executive director ( Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power; The Rose Man of Sing Sing: A True Tale of Life, Murder, and Redemption in the Age of Yellow Journalism; Eye on [forthcoming])the Struggle: Ethel L. Payne’s Journey Through the Civil Rights Revolution
Visit to the Seaver Center for Western History Research, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles 900 Exposition Boulevard 10:00am*–noon *meet at 9:45am at staff entrance, Bill Robertson Lane The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County is California and Los Angeles. The History Department was one home to the second largest natural science and social history of the first institutions to preserve materials from the motion collection in the United States. The museum’s Seaver Center picture industry. The tour will be led by Dr. John Long, for Western History Research collects, preserves, and makes the museum’s vice president of research, and Beth Werling, available archival materials relating to the history of the History Collection manager and silent-film historian. trans-Mississippi West, with a particular focus on Southern
Biographers International Organization 15 Schedule Saturday 7:30–7:45 Registration: Lobby 8:00–8:45am BIO Membership Meeting: Embassy Room Room Cardinal-Gold Room Figueroa Room Board Room Club Room Alumni Room 9:00– Show Me the Money: It Takes Two to The Biographer and the Choosing Your Subject Beyond Disneyland: 10:30am How to Finance and Interview Biopic with the Market in Research Opportunities Manage the Cost of Mind in Southern California Your Work 10:45am– Legal Liabilities for From Infatuation to Writing about Sex and Blogging to Boost The Stars Appear: Stars, 12:15pm Biographers Footnote: Archival and Love Sales Celebrity, and Biography Other Research 12:30– Lunch featuring keynote address by the 2:00pm 2012 BIO Award recipient Arnold Rampersad: Embassy Room 2:00– Ex-Wives, Angry Pursuing Hollywood's The Gifts, Challenges, Exploiting the Power Two Leading Literary 3:45pm Children, and Other Past and Dangers of of Social Media Agents’ View of the Questionable Sources Chronology Changing World of Publishing 4:00– The Dotted Line: How Dare You? Creating a Beautifully Biography and Book 5:30pm Contract Issues for How to Research the Written Biography Technology: Book Writers Unauthorized Celebrity Trailers Bio and Live to Tell the Tale 5:30– Grand reception in Vineyard Room, Davidson Center 7:30pm Premiere of Biopics and Biography: A Conversation Between Martin Scorsese and Stacy Schiff
Sunday Master Classes Room Figueroa Room Club Room Alumni Room Board Room 9:00– Widening Your Book’s Reach: Adapting Your Literary Solid Approaches to Alternatives to Traditional Publishing 11:30am Biographies for Younger Readers Biography Research
IO is deeply grateful to all the institutions that have enriched the 2012 Compleat Biographer Conference by opening their doors to our members: BMargaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; The Huntington Library; Los Angeles Public Library; The Paley Center for Media; Seaver Center for Western History Research, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles; UCLA Film & Television Archive; and The USC Libraries.