Biographers International Organization

This week we interview co-authors Marilyn S. Greenwald and Yun Li about their book, Eunice Hunton Carter: A Lifelong Fight for Social Justice, published by Empire State Editions, in April 2021. Greenwald is Professor Emerita of Journalism at Ohio University and a former Ohio-based newspaper reporter. She has authored five biographies including: A Woman of the Times: Journalism, Feminism and the Career of Charlotte Curtis (designated a “Notable Book” by The New York Times) and The Secret of the Hardy Boys: Leslie McFarlane and the Stratemeyer Syndicate, about the first author of the Hardy Boys book series. Yun Li is a CNBC financial news reporter, whose reporting has appeared in Reuters, Bloomberg News, and other outlets. Greenwald and Yun Li are interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Lisa Napoli.  

This week we interview journalist Kostya Kennedy, author of True: The Four Seasons of Jackie Robinson, published by St. Martin’s Press, in April 2022. Kennedy is an editorial director at Dotdash Meredith and a former senior writer at Sports Illustrated. He is also the New York Times–bestselling author of 56: Joe DiMaggio and the Last Magic Number in Sports (a runner–up for the 2012 PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing) and Pete Rose: An American Dilemma. Both won the Casey Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year. Kennedy was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Kevin McGruder.  

This week we interview Wanda A. Hendricks, Distinguished Professor Emerita at the University of South Carolina and author of The Life of Madie Hall Xuma: Black Women’s Global Activism During Jim Crow and Apartheid, published by the University of Illinois Press (UIP) in October 2022. Hendricks has served as the National Director of the Association of Black Women Historians, and senior editor of the three-volume Black Women In America: Second Edition, published by Oxford University Press. She currently is an editor for the UIP’s Women, Gender, and Sexuality in American History series, and her other books include Gender, Race, and Politics in the Midwest: Black Club Women in Illinois and the first biography of Black activist and intellectual Fannie Barrier Williams. Wanda Hendricks was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Sonja Williams.

This special episode features excerpts from a spirited conversation between USA Today Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page and fellow award-winning biographer and BIO member John “Jack” Farrell. His latest book, Ted Kennedy: A Life, is a fascinating exploration of the life and times of the former icon of the Senate and Kennedy family member, and it was published by Penguin Press in October 2022. This live, in-person interview was recorded on November 15, 2022, and sponsored by the Public Programs Department of the Manhattan-based New-York Historical Society. We are pleased to present this discussion with the Society’s permission.

This time we interview Susan Page, an award-winning journalist and USA Today’s Washington Bureau Chief. Page has written biographies of the influential former House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former first lady Barbara Bush. Currently, Page is working on a biography of Barbara Walters—the iconic broadcast journalist who passed away in December 2022. Susan Page’s biography of Walters will be published by Simon & Schuster either by the end of this year or the beginning of 2024. Page was interviewed for this episode by fellow biographer and BIO member John “Jack” Farrell.

Credit: Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY Sports

This week we feature a special episode with BIO’s 2022 Plutarch Award-winner Frances Wilson. Her latest book, Burning Man: The Trials of D. H. Lawrence, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, is considered to be an electrifying and revelatory new biography of the English writer. Wilson, a London-based critic, journalist, and author of several award-winning nonfiction works, was interviewed by Nigel Hamilton, a British-born, American-based biographer, academic, and broadcaster. He is the author of numerous biographies, including three volumes on the life and times of Franklin D. Roosevelt, a two-volume examination of Winston Churchill, and a best-selling exploration of a young John F. Kennedy. A former BIO president and chair of BIO’s 2022 Plutarch Award Committee, Nigel Hamilton interviewed Frances Wilson during BIO’s virtual Book Club meeting on September 17, 2022.  

Happy New Year! We’re pleased to start this year with a special episode featuring Pulitzer Prize Award-winning biographer Megan Marshall. During BIO’s virtual conference last year, Marshall received our organization’s highest honor: the BIO Award. Each year this award recognizes outstanding authors for their contributions to the art and craft of biography. Megan Marshall accepted the award with a speech recorded at the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston. She was introduced by fellow biographer and BIO member Natalie Dykstra on May 14, 2022.    

This week we interview Gene Andrew Jarrett, Dean of the Faculty and William S. Tod Professor of English at Princeton University. His latest book, Paul Laurence Dunbar: The Life and Times of a Caged Bird, published in October 2022 by Princeton University Press, examines the Gilded Age writer known as the poet laureate of his race. Jarrett also authored Representing the Race: A New Political History of African American Literature and Deans and Truants: Race and Realism in African American Literature, and he co-edited The Collected Novels of Paul Laurence Dunbar and The Complete Stories of Paul Laurence Dunbar. Gene Andrew Jarrett was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Kevin McGruder.  

This week we interview Iris Jamahl Dunkle, the former Poet Laureate of Sonoma County, California, and an award-winning author. Dunkle’s biography about the artist and wife of famed writer Jack London, titled, Charmian Kittredge London: Trailblazer, Author, Adventurer, was published by the University of Oklahoma Press in September 2020. Iris Jamahl Dunkle has authored four poetry collections, including, West : Fire : Archive, and she was interviewed by BIO member Jenny Skoog.  

This week we interview Anastasia Curwood, Professor of History at the University of Kentucky and author of Shirley Chisholm: Champion of Black Feminist Power Politics, scheduled for publication by the University of North Carolina Press in January 2023. Curwood has received fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Institute for Citizens and Scholars, and the James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference at Emory University. Her first book, Stormy Weather: Middle-Class African American Marriages Between the Two World Wars, explored African American marriages during the early twentieth century. Anastasia Curwood was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Sonja Williams.