2023 BIO Conference

All times listed are New York (Eastern Daylight) time.

All times listed are New York (Eastern Daylight) time.

9:00 AM–11:00 AM

WORKSHOPS 

Structuring and Revising Your Manuscript

Diana Parsell

You’ve done the preliminary research, and maybe started writing your biography. This craft workshop, pitched to novice and first-time biographers, will share tips on how to shape and control the story you’re telling. The session will address outline and chronology, finding your themes and subthemes, chapter development, achieving the right balance of elements (scene, context and interpretation), and cutting/revising to meet your book’s word limits. There will be time at the end for questions.

Diana Parsell is an editorial contractor and former journalist in Falls Church, Va. She has done writing and editing for many publications and websites, including National Geographic and The Washington Post, and for science organizations in Washington and Southeast Asia. A graduate of the University of Missouri’s j-school and Johns Hopkins University’s M.A. in writing program, she was one of the founding editors of the online Washington Independent Review of Books in 2011. In support of her first biography, Eliza Scidmore, the Trailblazing Journalist Behind Washington’s Cherry Trees (Oxford U. Press, March 2023), she received a Mayborn Fellowship in Biography and BIO’s 2017 Hazel Rowley Prize. Visit her website at www.dianaparsell.com.

Writing Your Family’s Story (or Your Own)

Lisa Napoli

Every one of us has a story to tell. Are you ready to tell yours? How do we mine personal memorabilia and family archives to craft memoir? What’s the best way to approach the story of your family, or your own personal story, to convey it to others–be it in text, on a website, in photographs, even a podcast? How do you talk to your family members about telling their story, and what do you leave out? In this overview class, we’ll talk about the essence of memoir, what makes for a good one, and how to get started.

Lisa Napoli is the author of four books of nonfiction—one memoir, about her time in and around the Kingdom of Bhutan, and three biographies (the most recent of which is about the “founding mothers” of NPR. As a journalist, she’s worked at the NY Times, MSNBC and public radio’s Marketplace. A native of Brooklyn and a graduate of Hampshire College, she’s currently working on her Master’s degree in the Biography and Memoir program at CUNY. With Sonja Williams, she’s helped to create BIO’s podcast.

Redefining Success as a Writer

Liz Dubelman

• Authors have a negative view of “marketing”
• Book promotion is hard
• Tools are over-featured & difficult  to learn
• Best practices are constantly changing

If you are trying to get your work out there you know how hard it is to focus on both creating the art and finding your audience. I will give you everything you need to help you promote your work without feeling like you’re giving up a piece of your soul in the process. I believe that you have a story that deserves to be heard.

Liz Dubelman is an Emmy Award Winner and the founder and CEO of VidLit Productions, LLC, the world-renowned book marketing and content development company. She has co-edited and contributed to What Was I Thinking? 58 Bad Boyfriend Stories (St. Martin’s Press, 2009), based on the VidLit series of the same name. She is also a magazine writer of fiction and nonfiction. Well over one million people have viewed her short story, “Craziest,” on the Web. She has deep experience leveraging a variety of internet technologies as well as film, video and animation production, podcasting, marketing, promotion, and has coached writers about the most effective ways of telling a story. Her digital career includes writing and producing original programming for Carrie Fisher, Bill Maher, David Foster Wallace, Cherry Lane Publishing, Microsoft Interactive, Bill Bryson, and others. She was Creative Director of News Corp’s internet content group, and has been a consultant to all of the major Hollywood studios in the area of digital rights and content strategy for over 20 years.