Biographers International Organization

This special episode features a spirited conversation between award-winning journalist and biographer Pamela Newkirk and BIO’s 2023 Plutarch Award-winner Jennifer Homans. The Plutarch Award recognizes the best biography of the year, as determined by a BIO committee of distinguished biographers. Homans earned this honor for her latest book, Mr. B.: Balanchine’s 20th Century (Random House, November 2022). Homans is the dance critic for The New Yorker, a Scholar-in-Residence at New York University, and the founding director of NYU’s Center for Ballet and the Arts. This edited discussion was recorded on November 29, 2022, in the Leon Levy Center for Biography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. We are pleased to present this discussion with the Levy Center’s permission.      

This week we interview sports journalist and author Jeff Pearlman. His latest book, The Last Folk Hero: The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson, was published in October 2022 by Mariner Books. Pearlman has also written eight New York Times best-selling books, including Football for a Buck, The Bad Guys Won!, Boys Will Be Boys, Showtime, Sweetness, and Gunslinger. He is the host of the Two Writers Slinging Yang podcast and he blogs regularly at jeffpearlman.com. Jeff Pearlman was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Lisa Napoli. 

This week we interview E. James West, a historian and lecturer in Interdisciplinary Studies and Cultures at England’s University College of London. He also serves as co-director of the Black Press Research Collective based at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. West has authored three books, most recently Our Kind of Historian: The Work and Activism of Lerone Bennett Jr., published in July 2022 as a part of the African American Intellectual History series from the University of Massachusetts Press. His research focuses on the Black press in the United States, as well as race, media and social rights issues across the Black diaspora. E. James West was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Sonja Williams.

This week we present the second half of our special two-part interview with Candice Millard, author of four New York Times bestsellers. Her most recent book, River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile, was published by Doubleday in May of 2022. Her previous books include The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey, and Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President, winner of the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime, the PEN Center USA award for Research Nonfiction, the One Book-One Lincoln Award, the Ohioana Award, and the Kansas Notable Book Award. Millard took home the 2017 BIO Award, and her work has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, Washington Post Book World, the Guardian, National Geographic and Time magazine. Candice Millard was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member John “Jack” A. Farrell.

This week we present the first segment of a special two-part interview with Candice Millard, author of four New York Times bestsellers. Her most recent book, River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile, was published by in May 2022 by Doubleday. Her previous books include The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey, and Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President, winner of the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime, the PEN Center USA award for Research Nonfiction, the One Book-One Lincoln Award, the Ohioana Award, and the Kansas Notable Book Award. Millard took home the 2017 BIO Award, and her work has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, Washington Post Book World, the Guardian, National Geographic and Time magazine. Candice Millard was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member John “Jack” A. Farrell.

This week we interview Aidan Levy whose latest book, Saxophone Colossus: The Life and Music of Sonny Rollins, was published in December 2022 by Hachette Books. Levy also authored, Dirty Blvd.: The Life and Music of Lou Reed, and he edited Patti Smith on Patti Smith: Interviews and Encounters. A former Leon Levy Center for Biography Fellow, his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Village Voice, JazzTimes, and The Nation.  Aiden Levy was interviewed by BIO member Jennifer Skoog.

This week we interview Chad Williams, the Samuel J. and Augusta Spector Professor of History and African and African American Studies at Brandeis University. His latest book, The Wounded World: W. E. B. Du Bois and the First World War, was published in April 2023 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Williams specializes in African American and modern US History, African American military history, the World War I era and African American intellectual history. Also, he authored the award-winning book, Torchbearers of Democracy: African American Soldiers in the World War I Era, and co-editor of Charleston Syllabus: Readings on Race, Racism and Racial Violence and Major Problems in African American History, Second Edition. Chad Williams was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Sonja Williams (no relation).

This week we feature the second segment of a special two-part interview featuring award-winning biographer, Stacy Schiff. Her latest book, The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams, was published by Little, Brown and Company in October 2022. Schiff is the author of several best-selling and acclaimed biographies, including gripping examinations of Cleopatra, the Witches of Salem and her Pulitzer Prize winning study of Vera Nabokov. Schiff is a Guggenheim, NEH and New York Public Library Cullman Center Fellow, and the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award in History and Biography from the New England Historic Genealogical Society. She has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, among several other publications. Stacy Schiff was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member John “Jack” A. Farrell.

This week we feature the first segment of a special two-part interview with award-winning biographer, Stacy Schiff.  Her latest book, The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams, was published by Little, Brown, and Company in October 2022. Schiff is the author of several best-selling biographies, including compelling examinations of Cleopatra, the Witches of Salem and her Pulitzer Prize winning study of Vera Nabokov. Schiff is a Guggenheim, NEH and New York Public Library Cullman Center Fellow, and the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award in History and Biography from the New England Historic Genealogical Society. She has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, and several other publications. Stacy Schiff was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member John “Jack” A. Farrell.

This week we interview Ashley Brown, assistant history professor and the Allan H. Selig Chair in Sport and Society in U.S. History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her biography, Serving Herself: The Life and Times of Althea Gibson, was published in February 2023 by Oxford University Press. Gibson was the first African American to compete and win championship titles at Wimbledon, as well at the United States, French, and Australian Opens. She was also the first Black woman to compete in the Ladies Professional Golf Association Tour. Brown’s article about American women and sports diplomacy was honored by the North American Society for Sport History and published in the Journal of Sport History. The Journal of African American History also published her scholarship. Ashley Brown was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Sonja Williams.