Biographers International Organization

This week we interview RJ Smith, author of Chuck Berry: An American Life, published in November 2022 by Hachette Books. Smith is a senior editor at Los Angeles Magazine, a contributor to Details, a columnist for The Village Voice and a staff writer for Spin. He also has written for GQ, New York Times Magazine, Elle, and Men’s Vogue. His book The One: The Life and Music of James Brown was among the New York Times‘ “100 Notable Books of 2012.” RJ Smith was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Kevin McGruder.

This special episode features excerpts from a conversation between award-winning journalist and author Andrew Meier and fellow biographer and BIO member Kai Bird. Meier’s latest book, Morgenthau: Power, Privilege, and the Rise of an American Dynasty, was published in October 2022 by Random House, and it’s a comprehensive examination of one of New York’s most influential families. This live, in-person discussion was recorded on October 11, 2022, in Manhattan, and sponsored by 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. 

Author photo credit: Brigitte Lacombe

This week we interview Helen Rappaport, the British author of sixteen highly regarded biographies. Her latest book, In Search of Mary Seacole: The Making of a Black Cultural Icon and Humanitarian, was published by Pegasus Books in September 2022. Rappaport has been a full-time historian and writer for more than twenty-three years, and in 2003 she discovered and purchased an 1869 portrait of Mary Seacole. The painting now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery and it served as the spark for her investigation into Seacole’s life and career. Rappaport’s previous books includes the biographies, The Romanov Sisters and The Last Days of the Romanovs. Helen Rappaport was interviewed by BIO member Jennifer Skoog.

Author photo credit: Mary Zacaroli

This week we interview Andrew Nagorski, an award-winning journalist and author of Saving Freud: The Rescuers Who Brought Him to Freedom, published by Simon and Schuster in August 2022. Nagorski spent more than three decades as a foreign correspondent and editor for Newsweek, and he is the author of eight books, including Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power and The Nazi Hunters. Nagorski gained international notoriety when the Soviet government, angered by his enterprising reporting, expelled him from the country. Andrew Nagorski was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Kitty Kelley.

Author photo credit: Milo Davis

This week we interview Lydia Moland, professor of philosophy at Colby College and author of Lydia Maria Child: A Radical American Life, published by in the University of Chicago Press in October 2022. This biography explores the life of one of the nineteenth century’s most courageous abolitionists. Moland’s work on Lydia Maria Child has appeared in the Paris Review, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, the American Scholar, and on National Public Radio. And her scholarship in German philosophy, including Hegel’s Aesthetics: The Art of Idealism, has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the ACLS, and the American Academy in Berlin. Lydia Moland was interviewed by BIO member Jennifer Skoog.

This week we interview Daphne Palmer Geanacopoulos, a historian, journalist, and author of The Pirate’s Wife: The Remarkable True Story of Sarah Kidd. It was published by Hanover Square Press, an imprint of HarperCollins, in November 2022. She is also the author of The Pirate Next Door: The Untold Story of Eighteenth-Century Pirates’ Wives, Families and Communities, published by Carolina Academic Press, and her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Southern Living, Virginia Business, and other outlets. Geanacopoulos was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Lisa Napoli.  

This week we interview Hilary A. Hallett, the Mendelson Family Professor, Director of American Studies, and Associate Professor of History at Columbia University. Her latest book is Inventing The Hollywood It Girl: How Elinor Glyn Created the Modern Romance and Conquered Early Hollywood, published by Liveright, in July 2022. Hallett is also the author of Go West, Young Women! The Rise of Early Hollywood, and she has written for the Los Angeles Times. Hallett was interviewed by BIO member Jennifer Skoog.  

This week we interview writer, editor, and former journalist in the Washington, D.C. area, Diana P. Parsell.  Her biography, Eliza Scidmore: The Trailblazing Journalist Behind Washington’s Cherry Trees, was published this month by Oxford University Press. It’s been praised by advance reviewers for its many revelations about a pioneering American woman who brought the world alive for readers a century ago. In support of the book, Parsell’s first biography, she received a Mayborn Fellowship in Biography and BIO’s Hazel Rowley Prize in. Diana P. Parsell was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Lisa Napoli.  

This week we interview Neil Baldwin, an author whose critically acclaimed biographies include examinations of William Carlos Williams, Man Ray, Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford. His current biography, Martha Graham: When Dance Became Modern, was published by Knopf, in October 2022. Baldwin has served as manager of The Annual Fund at The New York Public Library and was the founding executive director of The National Book Foundation. He is also a Emeritus Distinguished Visiting Professor of History in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor of Theatre and Dance in the College of the Arts at Montclair State University; and Critic-in-Residence at The Blended Campus. Baldwin will be interviewed by BIO member Jennifer Skoog.  

This week we interview Lerita Coleman Brown, author of What Makes You Come Alive: A Spiritual Walk with Howard Thurman, published this month by Broadleaf Books. A Distinguished Professor Emerita of Psychology at Agnes Scott College, Brown is a spiritual director/companion, writer, retreat leader, and speaker. She has appeared in the documentaries Back Against the Wall: The Howard Thurman Story and The Black Church, as well as on several podcasts. Her earlier book, When the Heart Speaks, Listen: Discovering Inner Wisdom, was published in 2019. Lerita Coleman Brown was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Kevin McGruder.