Annual Conference
2026 Annual Conference Panels
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Basics
In the Right Hands: Biographers as Collectors
10:15–11:15 a.m.
Moderator: A’Lelia Bundles
Panelists: Eve M. Kahn, Richard Kopley, Jared Stearns
Biographers can support their research by collecting important related material often overlooked on the market or in storerooms and unavailable in any repository or online. This panel will explore what authors have purchased, inherited, or been given, whether books, manuscripts, periodicals, ephemera, artworks, textiles, or objects, produced or owned by or pertaining to the biography subjects. The panelists will illustrate and illuminate the value of what they acquired, sometimes in the most unexpected places and at the last minute, and will discuss how items shaped their biography narratives and shed light on pivotal moments in their subjects’ lives and careers. The session will also cover how those materials can be transferred to institutional collections for safekeeping.
Using Genealogical Tools to Research Your Biographical Subject
10:15–11:15 a.m.
Moderator: Bernice Lerner
Panelists: Nick Reynolds, Sue Rubenstein DeMasi, Cindy Schweich Handler
In writing and researching biography, it’s often necessary to take a genealogical expedition. From finding descendants of your subject (and their associates), to researching family history, using genealogical tools can lend an important dimension to your subject’s story. Panelists will talk about their experiences and give tips on using everything from commercial genealogical databases and newspapers, to obituaries, archival correspondence, and other resources (online and print). You never know where a genealogical trail will lead you: biographical treasures await.
The Agents’ View
Moderator: Sara Fitzgerald
Panelists: Amelia Atlas, Tanya McKinnon, Rita Rosenkranz
What’s the publishing market like right now for biographers? Three agents who have represented BIO members and other best-selling non-fiction authors share their perspectives on questions that are on the minds of many authors. What kinds of “voices” are attracting publishers now? What’s the overall publishing market like now? What makes an effective proposal? Do authors always benefit by having an agent sell their books? How can authors protect their works in the burgeoning world of Artificial Intelligence? Bring your own questions for this panel of experienced publishing professionals to address.
Attention Must Be Paid: Writing about Forgotten Lives
Moderator: April F. Masten
Panelists: Vincent DiGirolamo, Eric K. Washington, Richard Carlin
This panel will look at the challenges and rewards of writing biographies of ordinary people, those remarkable though often obscure men and women who aspired to develop their creative abilities, express their deepest selves, and earn their livings doing so. All biographers of common people—persons unknown to us but whose lives typify their time and place—rely on limited sources, sparse and uneven records, fragments of information, and unusual evidence. They also highlight elements of familiar documents that have been overlooked by other historians. These materials do not always add up to a traditional biography—one based on personal papers and records—but the biographies they do form have something new to tell us.
Craft
Radical Biography for Teens
10:15–11:15 a.m.
Moderator: Angela Carstensen
Panelists: Deborah Heiligman, Ray Anthony Shepard
Writing biography for teens and their people has changed drastically in the past fifteen years. More and more authors are breaking the mold in the way young adult and middle grade biographies are written and who they are written about. No subject is off-limits for kids—if you know what you’re doing. Writing for this age group also gives authors the chance to make a difference in the future. Come listen to a panel of award-winning biographers talk about why they write for teens, how they do it, and why biographers should consider this field. Among the topics panelists will discuss are: How writing for this age group gives authors the freedom to just tell the story they want to tell; how authors can handle complex and controversial topics; who reads YA biography (hint: not just kids) and why.
Dancing About Architecture: Writing Biographies of Musicians
Moderator: Tim Greiving
Panelists: Steven C. Smith, John T. Reddick, Will Hermesk
There’s an old truism about how challenging it is to write about music (“like dancing about architecture”). So how do biographers tackle writing the life of someone who composed music as their vocation? What are some of the most successful, surprising, and quirkily singular tools for conveying this abstract, invisible form of art? How do we balance technical detail with readable drama, and also decide how to balance the life and the music? Four biographers of musicians will discuss how they translated pure sound and its creation into understandable, entertaining prose for general readers.
Experimenting With Biographical Form
Moderator: Janice P. Nimura
Panelists: Nina Ellis, Howard Fishman
This panel will explore the process of writing experimental biographies, which take the biographical form in new, often unexpected, and sometimes risky directions, incorporating (amongst other things) visual elements, objects, and borrowings from the techniques of memoir, travel writing, the detective story, or even the quest narrative.
Queering Biography
Moderator: Julie Kliegman
Panelists: Cynthia Carr, Brad Gooch, Evelyn C. White
Whether chronicling the life of an LGBTQ person or writing as an LGBTQ author, queerness is a central theme for many biographers. Topics include the nitty-gritty of handling pronouns and name changes, overarching questions about describing historical figures’ lives with care, and how a queer POV can enrich biography.
Business
What Do Editors Want?
Moderator: Bill Goldstein
Panelists: Thomas Gebremedhin, John Glusman, Jenna Johnson
Beyond the Launch: Audience Outreach for the Long Term
Moderator: Diana Parsell
Panelists: Marc Leepson, Heath Lee, Pamela D. Toler, Marlene Trestman
After the initial buzz of the book launch dies down, how do you keep your subject(s) in the public eye and reach new audiences? Promotion is a long game—and it’s not always just about selling books. Participants in this panel will discuss strategies they’ve found effective in expanding outreach and building connections through avenues such as newsletters, websites, and digital projects, specialty and virtual tours, exhibits, and institutional partnerships. Attendees will come away with creative ideas plus practical information on what it takes to adopt various approaches and sustain them over the long haul.
University Presses Make the Grade
Moderator: Diane Kiesel
Panelists: Carl Rollyson, Eric Brandt, Elizabeth Sherburn Demers
University presses have long had a reputation for publishing deadly academic tomes, but they seem to have become our most prolific and reliable publishers of general interest biography. This panel will focus on the changing fortunes and strategies of university presses, on what they are looking for in a biography, and on whether you will make any money going in that direction.
Life-Writing for Hire
Moderator: Lisa Napoli
Panelists: Kate Buford, Madeleine Morel
Take a gander at any nonfiction bestseller list today. Chances are good that the celebrity or prominent politician whose name graces the covers employed the assistance of a ghostwriter. This practice extends to the growing phenomenon of self-publishing: Would-be authors not likely to land a traditional book deal (if they even wish to seek such a thing) seeking expert research, writing, and/or editing assistance to make order from the chaos of their personal papers. The kind of archival research and writing we do as biographers is, in other words, valuable to others. In this panel, we’ll discuss the business and practice of life-writing for hire and how to monetize your skills.
Issues
Life Writing and Difference: A Conversation on Race and Biography
Panelists: Emily Bernard, Nicholas Boggs
Are there particular challenges facing the biographer who chooses to write about someone with a different racial identity? What does it take to navigate these challenges successfully? How do you know if you are the right person to tell the story of an individual whose backgrounds and life experiences look substantially different from your own? This panel presents a conversation between two prominent biographers who have written notably across racial lines. Emily Bernard and Nicholas Boggs will examine the rich but underexplored ingredients that constitute the sometimes mysterious and always durable connections between biographers and their subjects.
Troublemakers
Moderator: Kate Clifford Larson
Panelists: Ashley Farmer, Caleb Gayle, Carla Kaplan, Randal Maurice Jelks
Visionaries who advocate for extreme social changes pose unique challenges for biographers delving into the personal and public lives of their subjects. Often, the most successful activists are working towards a version of themselves that they aspire to become; leaving evidence counter to that construction may not have been in their interests. The myth that follows them may be incomplete or inaccurate. Inevitably, such figures have ruffled feathers, made enemies, and upset their antagonists. This panel, on writing biographies of troublemakers in their full historical contexts, considers the challenges—and opportunities, especially at this moment—of telling stories of those who set themselves against the norms of their day.
The Sixties, Revisited
Moderator: Jude Webre
Panelists: Susannah Cahalan, Ru Marshall, Tamara Payne, Sam Tanenhaus
The 1960s were an era of profound social upheaval. With civil rights now under assault, with Robert F. Kennedy’s son spearheading a war on science, with right-wing podcasters promoting the use of psychedelics, how have our perspectives changed on the period historians designate “the long Sixties” (1955-1973)?
How 1776 Speaks to Us Today
Moderator: Steve Paul
Panelists: Stacy Schiff, Amanda Vaill, Ted Widmer
The story of American history is constantly evolving as the work of biography uncovers long-overlooked lives and long-hidden documents and prompts important reconsiderations of so-called conventional wisdom. The roles of women, domestic lives, African Americans, and indigenous people have long been ignored in the telling of that history, for example. Two hundred and fifty years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, we know that the founding document was not frozen in time, and how it has been tested and reaffirmed over the centuries is an ongoing and vital part of its story as the backbone of all Americans’ freedom. This panel brings together three prominent biographers and historians to illustrate their experience as researchers, discoverers, and spirited, open-minded storytellers.