Annual Conference
Annual Conference Panels
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Basics
What Editors Want Today
Moderator: Amanda Vaill
Panelists: Bob Bender, Rakia Clark, Charles Spicer
The public’s fondness for biographies is constantly evolving, signaling shifting demographics, diversity, and accessibility demands and preferences. What are publishers and their top editors looking for from biographers in today’s marketplace? These editors will discuss how biography fits into their publishing lists, what conventional and creative approaches work, and what themes, subject fields, and historical periods generate the most interest. What makes a book proposal a winner, and what are the general guiding principles for a successful manuscript?
Mining Archives for Research Gold
Moderator: Marc Leepson
Panelists: Barrye Brown, Nancy Kuhl, Abigail Malangone
Archives and research libraries are treasure troves for biographers—if they know which ones to use and how to navigate them. Join two archivists and a curator from three of the country’s leading research institutions as they outline some of their holdings and answer your questions about how to get the most out of archives.
Writing an Artist’s Life
Moderator: Holly George-Warren
Panelists: Dan Charnas, Brad Gooch, Patti Hartigan
Are there specific qualifications necessary for prospective biographers whose subjects are visual artists, playwrights, musicians, actors, or dancers? Does such a biography affect one’s approach to writing about the life of an artistic subject—whether it be, say, cradle to grave, or focused more on criticism of subjects’ work rather than on the details of their personal lives? Should such a biographer have a background as a music journalist or arts critic, for example? How to reconcile writing art criticism and biography? And how do we separate the artist and the art? Our panelists, who have a range of backgrounds, will discuss these questions and how their own careers have helped—or perhaps hindered—their approach to biography, as well as how their own work has led to opportunities to write about their subjects.
Alternative Approaches to Biography
Moderator: Leslie Brody
Panelists: Janice Engel, Ann McCutchan, Mimi Pond
This panel of writers, artists, filmmakers, and musicians will discuss creative treatments in biography. They’ll address ways of seeing, adapting, and interpreting others’ lives through various media, such as film, graphics, music, and text, including less conventional forms for biography, such as comics and opera. They want to spark the conversation about research and methods, too. What sorts of tools, skills, and resources have they discovered or developed for their various projects? How much creative license have they and others claimed or found necessary for interpreting a life? For each approach, what are the best ways to convey a sense of how a life was lived?
Craft
Melding Science and Biography
Moderator: Gabriella Kelly-Davies
Panelists: Patchen Barss, Kenneth Miller, Karen Torghele
Almost every biography, irrespective of whether the subject is an author, artist, or musician, contains an element of science, medicine, or technological innovation. However, conveying a subject’s health challenges and scientific or technical pursuits in an engaging way can be challenging. In this panel discussion, members of BIO’s vibrant science and medicine roundtable who have published biographies of scientists, doctors, and innovators, will explore how to weave complex technical information into compelling narratives. Join us for an engaging exchange where panelists will share insights that will equip fellow biographers with the tools to seamlessly integrate science and medicine into any life story.
Merging Biography and Memoir
Moderator: Linda M. Grasso
Panelists: Megan Marshall, Marnie Mueller
This panel explores a life-writing genre that resists classification, troubles genre conventions, and confuses marketers: the merging of biography and autobiography in books written by women about women subjects. Utilizing different perspectives, panel participants will consider questions about intention, form, and consequences, as well as gender, race, and sexuality. What is gained and what is lost when women biographers merge their own stories with those of their female biographical subjects: mothers, close friends, and mentors? Does the blending permit storytelling that otherwise defies language and other available forms? In what ways does story-merging aid the creation of subjects’ interiority and in what ways does it hamper it? Panelists will address craft, discuss complex ethical, gender, and race issues, and focus on a new direction in biography.
Writing Black Lives Today
Moderator: Kevin McGruder
Panelists: Tanisha C. Ford, Doug Melville, Amrita Chakrabarti Myers
Writing biographies of African Americans today requires capturing rich and diverse experiences while acknowledging the intersectionality of the individual’s identity. How do factors such as race, gender, class, and sexuality intersect to shape those experiences and accomplishments and are they really important? How do biographers navigate the archives where many lives remain hidden and obscured? What are the latest trends in African American biography and what is its future?
Writing LGBTQ+ Lives
Moderator: Nicholas Boggs
Panelists: Cynthia Carr, Will Hermes, Jessica Max Stein
What are the responsibilities that authors carry while researching and writing about LGBTQ+ persons? Whether writing facts or speculating about a person’s sexuality and gender identity, what are the challenges biographers face, particularly in a world where LGBTQ+ rights are threatened and books about LGBTQ+ persons are being banned in parts of the country? What considerations should authors make in discussing a subject’s private life, especially if the subject lived in another era when hiding their true selves was necessary? Are there specific qualifications necessary for prospective biographers of LGBTQ+ subjects?
Business
From Book to Film: Selling Options, Scripting, Producing
Moderator: Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina
Panelists: Kai Bird, A’Lelia Bundles, Jack El-Hai
From options to Oppenheimer-like success is many biographers’ dream. But selling an option for your book is only the first step—and for some authors, the closest we’ll get—to achieving Hollywood acclaim. This panel will look at what options are and what role biographers may be asked to play if their title moves beyond the option stage and serves as a source for a biopic.
Leadership in Times of Peril in Democracy
Moderator: Kate Clifford Larson
Panelists: Nigel Cameron, Iris Jamahl Dunkle, Holly Van Leuven
Writers can harness the power of AI ethically and effectively by using it as a complementary tool, staying mindful of potential risks, and upholding the principles of authenticity, transparency, and responsible content creation. Balancing the benefits of AI with a full understanding of its limits is crucial in maintaining the integrity of the writing process. This panel will discuss the real-world uses and abuses of AI, trends, benefits, and pitfalls of this rapidly expanding tool.
Biographers’ Survival Tips
Moderator: Beverly Gray
Panelists: Marcia Biederman, Danny Fingeroth, Simon Read, Barbara D. Savage
How do biographers survive during the yearslong researching, writing, and editing process? Like explorers, biographers must be prepared to face a sometimes circuitous and rocky road to publication. How does one manage the process and keep on track? What other options to writing and publishing full biographies are out there? How do you craft a career? These experienced and adventurous authors have successfully navigated the journey to crafting biographies over the years and have tricks up their sleeves and backpacks full of trade secrets to share when bringing their subjects’ stories to life.
Research Tips From Award-Winning Writers
Moderator: Laurie Gwen Shapiro
Panelists: Debby Applegate, Emily Nussbaum, Annalyn Swan, Rachel L. Swarns
Research and documentation are at the core of any biography. This panel’s prize-winning authors will share their research strategies and approaches and engage in a discussion about the pros and cons of hiring researchers or doing the work yourself. The internet has changed the nature of research, and in some cases reduced the need to visit archives in person altogether because of digitization. Not all primary sources, however, are available in digital or audio format. Good old-fashioned research in dusty old archives is oftentimes necessary. How can authors be confident in the research done by contracted help? What is the author’s responsibility? And now with plagiarism all over the news, how does an author manage issues of accuracy and integrity?
Issues
Writing Asian and Asian American Biography
Moderator: Susan Blumberg-Kason
Panelists: Karen Fang, Katie Gee Salisbury, Sung-Yoon Lee
As authors of current and forthcoming biographies, our panel will discuss the following questions: How can we pitch Asian or Asian American themed content for broad audiences? What surprises and challenges come from researching across language, borders, and specific art forms? How do we gain the trust of our subjects’ families, and how does the past reveal itself to the digital age?
Leadership in Times of Peril in Democracy
Moderator: Marion Orr
Panelists: Fergus M. Bordewich, Anastasia C. Curwood, John A. Farrell, Samuel G. Freedman
Most observers consider the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 an attack on American democracy, a flashpoint for Americans and the American political system. Historians and social scientists have pointed to growing threats to U.S. democracy, and public opinion polls show that large majorities of Americans also believe democracy is at risk. At the same time, growing numbers of Americans tell pollsters that political violence is appropriate to “save” the United States. During previous times of political and social peril, political leaders have worked to direct the nation toward the goal of a “more perfect” union. What are the qualities of leadership that are important during times of peril, when the nation is facing threat from within? This panel features biographers who have traced the careers of political leaders who rose during difficult times to fight against subjugation and to lift the ideals of American democracy.
Intimacy & Boundaries
Moderator: Ruth Franklin
Panelists: Bill Goldstein, Kitty Kelley, Abigail Santamaria
At BIO’s 2023 conference, several women biographers traded war stories about sexual harassment experienced during research. What can be done when, say, the perpetrator is a key source or estate executor? What recourse do we have in the absence of an HR department? The discussion expanded from there to questions around navigating intimate relationships with our subjects and their families. Unlike newspaper journalists, biographers don’t have a clear and externally imposed code of conduct. How do we cultivate intimacy with our subjects’ friends and relatives while remaining professional? What happens when a biographer gets drawn into uncomfortable family dynamics or offered gifts? This panel will investigate these questions while opening a discussion around general principles to guide us beyond our gut feelings in such situations, including the role BIO might play in offering support for biographers caught in unfavorable power dynamics.
Who Gets to Tell the Story?
Moderator: Carla Kaplan
Panelists: Jonathan Eig, Lizzie Skurnick, Ilyon Woo
In recent years, much has been made over the problem of cultural appropriation: the inappropriate or unacknowledged use of a culture or identity by someone outside that culture and identity. How might this be reflected by an author writing a biography of someone from a different background? In short, who gets to tell the story? Is this question even appropriate to ask when discussing the craft of writing biography? Our panelists—each of whom has written about lives beyond their own identities—will engage this topic and assess the political, social, and cultural implications of producing meaningful life stories.