Biographers International Organization

Annette Gordon-Reed is the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University. She also is the author of several acclaimed books, including The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award for Nonfiction, and the Anisfield-Wolf Nonfiction Book Award. Gordon-Reed lives in New York and Cambridge, and her latest book, On Juneteenth, was published by Liveright in May 2021.

Photo by Tony Rinaldo

In this week’s episode, we interview Stephen Budiansky, a veteran historian, biographer, and journalist who has published 15 books, including his current biography, Journey to the Edge of Reason: The Life of Kurt Gödel, published by W.W. Norton & Company in May 2021. His writing also has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, and he is a Guggenheim Fellow. Budiansky was interviewed in his Loudoun County, Virginia, home via Zoom on July 8, 2021, by BIO member Sonja Williams.

Photo by Martha Polkey

In this week’s episode, we interview Kerri Greenidge, author of Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter, published November 19, 2019, by Liveright/Norton. Greenidge was interviewed via Zoom on June 28, 2021, by writer and BIO member Sonja Williams.

Photo by Matthew Guillory

In this week’s episode, we interview Raquel Ramsey and Tricia Aurand, co-authors of Taking Flight: The Nadine Ramsey Story, published in September 2020 by the University of Kansas Press. Ramsey is a retired Beverly Hills High School teacher and ESL coordinator. She also is the widow of Col. Edwin P. Ramsey, a decorated World War II hero. Aurand is an award-winning screenwriter, media critic, and podcast host who has several scripts in production and development. Aurand and Ramsey were interviewed via Zoom on February 25, 2021 by writer and BIO member Lisa Napoli.

Tricia Aurand

Raquel Ramsey

In this week’s episode, we interview Patrick Parr, author of One Week in America: The 1968 Notre Dame Literary Festival and a Changing Nation, published March 2021 by Chicago Review Press. Parr’s narrative is a day-by-day examination of a week that began with President Lyndon B. Johnson announcement that he would not seek re-election and ended with the fallout created by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s the assassination.  Parr includes never-before-published letters from festival attendees Joseph Heller (Catch-22), Ralph Ellison (Invisible Man), Kurt Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse-Five), and Norman Mailer (The Naked and the Dead). Parr was interviewed via Zoom in his home in Yokohama, Japan, on February 25, 2021 by writer and BIO member Lisa Napoli.