What does Psychologizing biography mean? How I have used it.

I read a review of my book, The Last Days of Sylvia Plath, in order to discuss the methodology of biography and of the reviewer.

What to say about the epistemology of biography and why it is sometimes better to not have been there, but to see it all from afar and yet in closeup, as the past is recreated in the biographer’s imagination.

Authorized/Unauthorized; Gossipy/Salacious/; Plodding/Workmanlike/Revisionist

1. Is the subject worthy of a biography. 2. Is the subject too small? 3. Why another biography of?

Why it is important to do a proposal? Why not just write the book? This podcast tells you why.

When does it make sense to use the present tense in a biography? Examples from the work of Noel Riley Fitch, William Faulkner, and yours truly.

Biography is its own form of knowledge, a view that many readers and reviewers of biography are reluctant to acknowledge, or do not even consider.

Listeners who want to know how to navigate the varied access to sources with different subjects, or how to present a new vision without new sources.

What to do when not all parts of your biographical subject’s life are equal, when the first part of the life seems the most exciting, for example, or when interest only really builds in the last part of the subject’s life.