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March 2016 Volume 11 Number 1 Now Is the Time… to Register
From the Editor
for the 2016 BIO Conference
The generosity of BIO memberswhen it comes to stepping up andhelping out is one of the mostgratifying things for me here atTBC. When I put out a call forassistance, people respond. Casein point: This month differentorganizations in New York areoffering programs of interest tobiographers that I would like tocover in the April issue. Ourdedicated and intrepid NYCcorrespondent, Dona M unker,would attend all of them if shecould, but logistics make itimpossible. At BIO board member

Will Swift's suggestion (thanks,Will!), I sent out an email tomembers in and around the cityseeking aid. In less than 24 hours, Ihad two new reporters on boardand back-ups if necessary. A big The Richmond Marriott Downtown is the site of events for Saturday, June 4, and thank you to them, as well as to within walking distance of the Library of Virginia, where the previous evening's the other writers who donate reception will be held.
their time and expertise to TBCand every facet of BIO.
If you've been putting off registering for the 2016 BIO Conference on June 3–5, Topping the list of volunteerswho make BIO the thriving we strongly suggest you do it now, before the early-bird registration fee expires.
organization it is are the people For BIO members, the conference fee goes from $250 to $320 on March 16. For working behind the scenes to non-members, the fee increases from $350 to $430 at the same time. If you're not make the Seventh Annual BIOa BIO member, now's the perfect time to join! You can join online at our Conference the informative and This is shaping up to be BIO's best conference yet, with speakers and panelists stimulating event I know it will be.
such as acclaimed authors Debby Applegate, James Atlas, Douglas Brinkley, We still have a few months to go, Jeffrey Frank, Kitty Kel ey, D. T. Max, Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Mal on, but as the article to the left of Evan Thomas, and Stacy Schiff. this letter reminds you, time is Not to mention the luncheon talk by the renowned British writer Claire Tomalin running out to take advantage of the early-bird discount.
—the biographer of Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens—this year's Registration so far has been brisk, BIO Award winner; three great archival/historical Friday tours; authors reading so register now to make sure you from their new biographies; the Friday evening reception at the Library of Virginia; can attend all the panels andthe announcement of the winner of the Plutarch Award for Best Biography of other conference events that suit 2015; and the new BIO Book Bash on Sunday, complete with book signings, your interests.
networking—and local craft beers. Speaking of the conference: In Nearly al of the events are in downtown Richmond within easy walking this issue, you'll see the names of distance from the Richmond Marriott Downtown, the conference hotel. Plus, a the four finalists for the Plutarch wide array of exciting cultural and culinary attractions wil take place throughout Award, the winner of which will beannounced in Richmond. We also announced in Richmond. We also the entire weekend. To name just two: the vibrant First Friday Art Walk with live have our annual roundup of spring music and local food trucks, and Sunday's Broad Appetite, an al -day culinary and summer biographies that are adventure on Broad Street in front of the Marriott.
likely to draw attention from major We'l fil you in on more exciting conference and Richmond details in the media outlets in the months to So, go to the of the BIO website today and make your plans to join fel ow BIO members in Richmond.
BIO Announces Finalists for
Please Keep
Your Info
BIO's Plutarch Committee has chosen four finalists out of ten nominees for this Making a move or just changed year's Plutarch Award, which recognizes the best biography of 2015 as chosen by your email? We ask BIO BIO members. The finalists are, in alphabetical order by author: members to keep their contact Irwin F. Gel man, The President and the Apprentice: Eisenhower and information up to date, so we Nixon, 1952-1961 (Yale University Press) and other members know where Peter Guralnick, Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock'n'Roll (Little, to find you. Update your information in the T. J. Stiles, Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America of the BIO website.
(Knopf)Rosemary Sullivan, Stalin's Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Sold to Publishers
Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva (Harper) BIO members have already received an official bal ot via email with a link to the A Fierce Glory website where they can vote for the winner of this year's Plutarch Award. Voting sold to Da Capo Press

is open until midnight on May 15, 2016. If you're a member and did not receive a Untitled biography of Barry Sadler The winner wil be announced on Saturday, June 4, at the Seventh Annual BIO sold to Stackpole by Joseph Vallely at Swagger Literary Agency Crown of Blood: The Deadly Inheritance of Lady Jane Grey sold to Pegasus and M ichael O'M ara by Andrew Lownie at Andrew Lownie Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian Untitled biography of Tiger Woods Voting for the 2016 Plutarch Award: A New System
sold to Simon & Schuster by Richard Pine of Inkwell M anagement By Brian Jay Jones, BIO president, and Will Swift, chair of the Plutarch
Award Committee
The It Girls Last summer, the BIO Board implemented a new approach for selecting the (Elinor Glyn and Lucy, Plutarch Award for best biography of the year. Previously, the Plutarch Committee Lady Duff-Gordon) sold to William M orrow forwarded ten nominated books to the membership at large, and asked them to by Annelise Robey at rank their top four. However, members only had a few weeks to read this large Jane Rotrosen Agency number of biographies. Many members expressed concern to the board that theywere unable to cast an appropriately informed vote in the time al otted.
Laura Dassow Walls For this reason, the board determined that the Plutarch Committee would begin Henry David Thoreau: A Life the process for 2016 by initial y naming ten outstanding nominees, representing sold to the University of Chicago Press

books across four categories (Politics and Leadership, Arts and Literature, Popular Culture and Sports, and History and Society). From these ten books, the Morgan Freeman: Biography committee narrowed the list down to four finalists, from which BIO members wil sold to Barricade vote for their top choice. By revising the nomination and selection process in this by Bob Diforio at way, it is the Board's hope and intent that members wil have adequate time to read D4EO Literary Agency the nominated books before making their final selection.
After this year's votes are tabulated and the winner announced, the board wil Becoming the Messiah determine how wel the new structure is working. If it appears that few BIO (M enachem M endel Schneerson) members are voting for the award, the board wil review the selection and voting sold to Yale University Press process to determine whether, for example, the number of nominees or finalists by Rob M cQuilkin at Lippincott should be adjusted or if the winner should be selected by a special committee.
M assie M cQuilkin Battling Bios on Several
In Search of George Subjects Among the
by Zoe Pagnamenta at Highlights of Spring and
the Zoe Pagnamenta Agency on behalf of Caroline Dawnay at United Agents sold to Dey Street Books While publishing insiders may say that the by Daniel Greenberg at overal selection of new biographies coming Levine Greenberg Rostan out this spring and summer is not as impressive as last year's stel ar crop, the range The Bond King of subjects—some tried and true, some getting sold to Flatiron Books their first major due—should satisfy the most sold to Flatiron Books by Christy Fletcher at discriminating readers. Reviewing the Fletcher & Company announced titles, TBC came up with aselection of books most likely to receive The Extra Woman considerable attention in the coming months.
(M arjorie Hillis) We're highlighting some here and in the list sold to Liveright below. You can see a longer list, compiled by Kate Johnson of from the publishing database at the Wolf Literary Services Harman's sources included previously unavailable letters.
TBC does its best to learn about new Cassandra of the Nation: books, and our monthly In Stores feature wil The Life of Louis XVI include even more spring and summer titles. Should we have missed any here, sold to Yale University Press by Andrew Lownie at Andrew Lownie please let us know so we can add them to the list on the website.
A literary biography is one of the most notable books in March, Clair Harman'sCharlotte Brontë: A Fiery Heart. Another March release garnering attention is Kafka's Last Trial Rightful Heritage: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of America by Douglas sold to W. W. Norton by Deborah Harris of the Books about two literary figures, one from each side of the manuscript, are Deborah Harris Agency among the highlights for April: The Lady with the Borzoi: Blanche Knopf, Literary Tastemaker Extraordinaire by Laura Claridge and Chasing the Last Laugh: Mark Nixon and the Mafia Twain's Raucous and Redemptive Round-the-World Comedy Tour by Richard sold to Thomas Dunne Books Zacks. April also brings us biographies on two of Hollywood's most talented stars, by Ronald Goldfarb at Goldfarb & Associates Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streep by Michael Schulman and Barbra Streisand:Redefining Beauty, Femininity, and Power by Neal Gabler. Staying in the world of entertainment, Simon Cal ow publishes the third volume of his biography of Orson Gettysburg Rebels Wel es, One-Man Band (a fourth volume is stil to come). sold to Regnery History by Uwe Stender at TriadaUS Moving to magazine publishing, the firstof two battling bios about Helen Gurley Brown comes out in April, Brooke Hauser's Old Man River: An American Odyssey Enter Helen: The Invention of Helen Gurley (Dick Conant)sold to Knopf Brown and the Rise of the Modern Single by Rachel Clements at Abner Stein, on Woman. (Its competitor, Not Pretty behalf of Susan Hobson at Enough: The Unlikely Triumph of Helen M cCormick Literary Gurley Brown by Gerri Hirshey comes out in July.) Rounding out April, the long shelf The Whole External World: A True Story of books about TR gets another addition of Murder, Bootlegging, and Justice in with The Naturalist: Theodore Roosevelt, A the Jazz Age Lifetime of Exploration, and the Triumph of American Natural History by Darrin by Simon Lipskar at Writers House Hauser's book is the first of Speaking of subjects whom readers two about Helen Gurley The Moth and the Mountain can't seem to get enough of, May'shighlights include Sidney Blumenthal's A (M aurice Wilson) sold to Simon & Schuster Self-Made Man: The Political Life of by Sloan Harris at ICM on behalf of Abraham Lincoln, 1809–1849. A less-wel known subject is sure to draw attention Karolina Sutton at Curtis Brown this spring with Jil Lepore's Joe Gould's Teeth. A notable university press releaseis Robert Parris Moses: A Life in Civil Rights and Leadership at the Grassroots by Laura Visser-Maessen. And turning to the world of pop culture, a musical titan Untitled biography of Steph Curry sold to Touchstone gets time in the spotlight in Philip Norman's Paul McCartney: The Life. Later in gets time in the spotlight in Philip Norman's Paul McCartney: The Life. Later in by Daniel Greenberg at Levine the season, Mark Ribowsky looks at another pop music icon in Sweet Dreams and Flying Machines: The Life and Music of James Taylor. Heading into the summer months, June sees new works on two great military Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith Year of the Slugger minds, William Tecumseh Sherman: In the Service of My Country: A Life [0]by (M ickey M antle) James Lee McDonough and Douglas MacArthur: American Warrior by Arthur sold to Basic Books Herman. Moving from war to affairs of the heart, Michael Shelden brings us by Sylvie Greenberg and Donald Lamm Melville in Love: The Secret Life of Herman Melville and the Muse of Moby- at Fletcher & Company Dick. Another notable book in June is The Man Who Built the Sierra Club: A Lifeof David Brower by Robert Wyss. Another group of subjects who inspire no shortage of biographies is theKennedy family. July brings Larry Tye's Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a for Renewal?
Liberal Icon, and the first of two books this summer on Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy, Please respond promptly to who died in 1948 at 28: Kick: The True Story of JFK's Sister and the Heir to your membership renewal Chatsworth by Paula Byrne. The competing title, Kick Kennedy: The Charmed Life notice. As a nonprofit and Tragic Death of the Favorite Kennedy Daughter by Barbara Leaming, comes organization, BIO depends on out in August. The death of a subject can stir interest in a biography, so the members' dues to fund our passing of Harper Lee last month should bring attention to Charles J. Shields's annual conference, the Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee: From Scout to Go Set a Watchman, an publication of this newsletter, updating of his earlier Lee biography.
and the other work we do to Final y, while for most sports fans August means heated pennant races and the support biographers around the coming of footbal season, Roland Lazenby's new book should have them thinking world. When renewing, please about basketbal with his Showboat: The Life of Kobe Bryant. make sure the contactinformation we have for you is Éamon de Valera: A Will to Power by Ronan Fanning (Harvard University Press)Young Mr. Turner: The First Forty Years, 1775-1815 by Eric Shanes (Yale University Press) The Rise of a Prairie Statesman: The Life and Times of George McGovernby Thomas J. Knock (Princeton University Press) Or do you know one who is The Grand Tour: The Life and Music of George Jones by Rich Kienzle interested in biography? BIO (Dey Street Books) now has a special student Rightful Heritage: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of America by Douglas Brinkley (Harper) The First Nazi: Erich Ludendorff, The Man Who Made Hitler Possible byWil Brownel , Denise Drace-Brownel , and Alex Rovt (Counterpoint)Frederick the Great: King of Prussia by Tim Blanning (Random House)Charlotte Brontë: A Fiery Heart by Claire Harman (Knopf)The Immortal Irishman: The Irish Revolutionary Who Became an AmericanHero by Timothy Egan (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) Dante: The Story of His Life by Marco Santagata (Belknap Press)Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streep by Michael Schulman (Harper)Barbra Streisand: Redefining Beauty, Femininity, and Power by NealGabler (Yale University Press)Orson Welles, Volume 3: One-Man Band by Simon Cal ow (Viking)The Lady with the Borzoi: Blanche Knopf, Literary Tastemaker A Letter from the
Extraordinaire by Laura Claridge (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) The Midnight Assassin: Panic, Scandal, and the Hunt for America's FirstSerial Killer by Skip Hollandsworth (Henry Holt) Grad Student to Journalist to
The Naturalist: Theodore Roosevelt, A Lifetime of Exploration, and the Editor to Biographer
Triumph of American Natural History by Darrin Lunde (Crown) I have to laugh when I think of Enter Helen: The Invention of Helen Gurley Brown and the Rise of the everything I had to learn about Modern Single Woman by Brooke Hauser (Harper) working on a biography. I had Chasing the Last Laugh: Mark Twain's Raucous and Redemptive Round- already been published for the-World Comedy Tour by Richard Zacks (Doubleday) decades (in newspapers and magazines), so I was an old handat hooking the reader, weighing Your Friend Forever, A. Lincoln: The Enduring Friendship of Abraham the plausibility of information, and Lincoln and Joshua Speed by Charles B. Strozier (Columbia University meeting a deadline. I had done graduate work, so I was Robert Parris Moses: A Life in Civil Rights and Leadership at the undaunted by specialized Grassroots by Laura Visser-Maessen (University of North Carolina Press) terminology and the need to Paul McCartney: The Life by Philip Norman (Little, Brown and Company) develop a thesis. Having worked Joe Gould's Teeth by Jil Lepore (Knopf) as an editor of art catalogues, I A Self-Made Man: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln, 1809 – 1849 by was also acquainted with theSidney Blumenthal (Simon & Schuster) Chicago Manual of Style.
But, like beginners in most fields, I didn't even know what I Commander in Chief: FDR's Battle with Churchill, 1943 (FDR at War) by didn't know—most of which was Nigel Hamilton (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) involved with the mechanics of Hunter S. Thompson: Fear, Loathing, and the Birth of Gonzo by Kevin T.
book publishing.
McEneaney (Rowman & Littlefield) In journalism, of course, there Diane Arbus: Portrait of a Photographer by Arthur Lubow (Ecco) are no endnotes. The only method Sweet Dreams and Flying Machines: The Life and Music of James Taylor I knew of creating them dates by Mark Ribowsky (Chicago Review Press) back to the Typewriter Era, when Louis D. Brandeis: American Prophet by Jeffrey Rosen (Yale University I was in grad school: typing a superscript numeral (which used superscript numeral (which used William Tecumseh Sherman: In the Service of My Country: A Life by to involve a delicate twist of the James Lee McDonough (W. W. Norton) platen knob) and separately adding Douglas MacArthur: American Warrior by Arthur Herman (Random House) a numbered citation to the end ofThe Man Who Built the Sierra Club: A Life of David Brower by Robert the text. This painstaking effort Wyss (Columbia University Press) became truly onerous when Ibegan shifting passages around, sometimes to a different chapter.
Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee: From Scout to Go Set a It was a revelation to learn, al - Watchman by Charles J. Shields (Henry Holt) too-belatedly, that MS Word Marie-Antoinette by Hélène Delalex, Alexandre Maral, and Nicolas al ows you to create an endnote Milovanovic (J. Paul Getty Museum) bonded to its source—a devoted, Kick: The True Story of JFK's Sister and the Heir to Chatsworth by Paula if long-distance, marriage that wil not be torn asunder.
Bush by Jean Edward Smith (Simon & Schuster) Then there was my old grad Not Pretty Enough: The Unlikely Triumph of Helen Gurley Brown by Gerri school friend, ibidem, known byHirshey (Sarah Crichton Books) his nickname, Ibid. He was now Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon by Larry Tye (Random persona non grata, my publisher's copy editor told me. Instead, you Gene Roddenberry: The Man Who Created Star Trek: A Biography by were supposed to supply a Lance Parkin (Aurum Press) shortened form of the reference.
And farewel to the neat little underscore that was once the Showboat: The Life of Kobe Bryant by Roland Lazenby (Little, Brown and proper way to indicate material by the same author in a bibliography.
Kick Kennedy: The Charmed Life and Tragic Death of the Favorite Now, for some inscrutable Kennedy Daughter by Barbara Leaming (Thomas Dunne Books) reason, the author's name was tobe repeated.
Marconi: The Man Who Networked the World by Marc Raboy (Oxford be repeated.
University Press) I hadn't realized that I was Libertarians on the Prairie: Laura Ingalls Wilder, Rose Wilder Lane, and supposed to record the page the Making of the Little House Books by Christine Woodside (Arcade numbers of vintage newspaper articles, many of which came tome as clippings denuded of suchdetails. (Faced with a ridiculous On the Road
number of these citations, Ipushed back, declaring that it would be a waste of my time totry to track down this information.) Although I dutifully fil ed out the publisher's form asking for any unusual elements in themanuscript, it hadn't occurred to me that a particular term that issecond nature in my field neededto be enumerated for the By Sallie Bingham
copyeditor. I was aghast to The Sal ie Bingham Center for discover in the proof that every Women's History and Virginia Woolf's desk, part of the center's mention of "Old Master Culture, the Center I founded paintings," had morphed into Old with Professor Jean O'Barr Masters paintings"—an error decades ago, joins distinguished company. The Center, along with the John Hope rather like saying "anyways" Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture, instead of "anyway." It al ended wel , thanks to my the Human Rights Archive, and the Archive of Documentary Arts, among others, the Human Rights Archive, and the Archive of Documentary Arts, among others, wonderful editor, two hard- are al part of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Duke working production editors who University in Durham, North Carolina.
al owed me to add a few Since the Center's founding, it has grown and bloomed, supported by the footnotes (for general readers university and an extraordinary cadre of archivists who reach out to diverse unlikely to consult the copious women and persuade them to leave their papers in a place where they wil be endnotes), and a copyeditor who preserved, catalogued and made available to generations of students and the general patiently shored up a ratherpublic. idiosyncratic bibliography. Thank Highlights include the papers of Robin Morgan, Kate Mil et, Dorothy Al ison, goodness I remembered to thank and Minnie Bruce Pratt, Anne Bradstreet, Harriett Beecher Stowe, among many her for al the careless errors from others—and Virginia Woolf's painted writing desk.
which she saved me before I The Center also sponsors symposia on relevant issues of women's sexuality, started enumerating the new onesshe introduced! I invite those of health, writing, religion and education.
you who are poised on the It al came about because during my long life as a writer, I heard many stories threshold of publication or who of women's papers being consigned to attics or basements after their deaths, or (for some obscure reason) want to even thrown into Dumpsters. Traditional y, the papers of wel -known men have relive those clueless early days, to been preserved, but often a woman's papers, if they are kept at al , can only be join me, Paul Sorrentino, Marlene found buried in her husband's collection and catalogued under his name. Single Trestman, Sonja Williams, and women, less wel -known women, poor women, radical transformers of our moderator Anne Boyd Rioux for society, and LGBTQ leaders and scholars often disappear entirely in a few short the panel, Trial by Fire: Lessons years after their deaths. From Publishing a First I've often encountered women who are bewildered after having inherited a Biography, at the BIO Conferenceon June 4. trove of a relative's writing, not knowing how to evaluate it or where in the worldit might be stored. Too often, our history is erased because what we wrote with pain and daring was not preserved.
The seed was planted years ago when I realized that I needed to do something Cathy Curtis
BIO Vice President
with my own papers and began a conversation with Robert Byrd, Jean O'Barr, andother noteworthies at Duke University. I remember how astonished I was whenBob Byrd journeyed to Louisvil e, where I was then living, to collect my first box BIO's Board of
of manuscripts, letters and news stories and carry it back with him on the plane to Brian Jay Jones, President It soon became clear to me that I could not be satisfied with preserving myown collection alone. Too many other women did not have the access that was so Cathy Curtis, Vice President precious and so essential to me. And so began my financial support of the center, Marc Leepson, Treasurer supported generously by Duke, and the housing of the greatly increased and Barbara Burkhardt, Secretary growing archive in the newly renovated Rubenstein Library.
When I visit, I often see students deeply immersed in some part of a collection that might never have become available if the Center did not exist.
I am blessed, and the blessing is shared with a large group of other women.
Visiting the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture
Campus Restaurants: James McGrath Morris The Sal ie Bingham Center provides travel grants of up to $1,000 for researchers The Sal ie Bingham Center provides travel grants of up to $1,000 for researcherswhose work would benefit from access to the women's history collections held at Advisory Council
Duke University's Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. The applicationdeadline for 2016 has passed. For more information on the grants, go Debby Applegate, Chair Editors Talk Biography at NYU Seminar
Catherine Clinton The New York University Biography Seminar is hosting a panel on Monday, March 14, featuring four editors discussing biography. The panelists are: Tim Duggan, publisher, Tim Duggan Books, an imprint of Crown Gerald Howard, executive editor and vice president, Doubleday Ileene Smith, executive editor and vice president, Farrar, Straus & Giroux David Levering Lewis Robert Weil, editor-in-chief, Liveright, a division of W.W. Norton Seminar members James Atlas and Gayle Feldman wil moderate the Wiliam S. McFeely discussion, which starts at 6:30 p.m. and wil be held at 20 Cooper Square, Fifth Franklin Gives Works in Progress Lecture
Ruth Franklin wil discuss her upcoming biography of Shirley Jackson at the Dorothy O. Hel y Works in Progress Lecture on Monday, March 14, sponsored by Martin J. Sherwin Women Writing Women's Lives (WWWL). Franklin's book, due out in September, explores Jackson's literary work beyond her famous 1948 "TheLottery," as wel as her sometimes-turbulent private life. Franklin is a book critic and the author of A Thousand Darknesses: Lies and Truth in Holocaust Fiction, which was a finalist for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. The lecture wil be held at the CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue at 34th Street, RoomC197, from 4to 5:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. Its co-sponsorsinclude the Women and Gender Studies Certificate Program, the Leon Levy Center The Biographer's Craft
for Biography, and the Feminist Press at CUNY. For more information, go WWWL Update
TBC reported on the October 2, 2015, Women Writing Women's Lives 25th Anniversary Conference. Now of the three conference panels online: "Whose Lives?", "Tel ing the Life Story," and "Sources and James M cGrath M orris Secrets." The links to the video are in the opening paragraph. Russian Publisher Self-Censors Putin Biography
Copy Editor
Russian journalist Masha Gessen, whose recent books include a biography of M argaret M oore Booker Vladimir Putin, says the Russian president does not need to censor unflattering books about his life or how the country functions under his rule. Russian United Kingdom publishing houses do it for him. In an article for The Intercept, Gessen relates how she met with a publisher who said he could publish anything he wanted—but not a Russian translation of Gessen's The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin. Gessen writes that while prior censorship is outlawed in Russia, the country has "a slew of laws and practices that have restricted publishing in ways that are much less clear than the old Soviet system." Those laws make Ashok R. Chandran booksel ers reluctant to take on titles that might lead to legal chal enges, so publishers don't risk bringing out the books in the first place. That means books never come out that put Putin in a negative light or that chal enge the government's stance on such things as gay rights. United States Sandra Kimberley Hall (Washington, D.C.) To contact any of our correspondents, What is your current project and what
stage is it at?
I've completed most of the research, and I'm
wel into the writing of the first biography of
the Hungarian-born photographer André
Kertész. Kertész was the arguably the
foundational modernist photographer. He
pioneered street photography and invented
Albers's most recent biographyis Joan Mitchell, Lady Painter: A subjective photojournalism. His pictures are irresistible. Yet, for various reasons, he wasalternately celebrated and ignored. So thesubtext of my book has to do with changing ideas about what photography is andwhat it should be. What person would you most like to write about?
An artist who could grip the public imagination. Agents report that, strangely,
artists' biographies are the toughest of al to sel . Yet many artists have lived richly
imaginative lives, and their stories are relevant to everyone's creativity.
Who is your favorite biographer or what is your favorite biography?
I can't name a single favorite, but my list would include Judith Thurman's Secrets
of the Flesh: A Life of Colette and Annalyn Swan and Mark Stevens's DeKooning: An American Master for the writers' phenomenal research, commandingvoices, and fusion of the narrative with the interpretive. Obviously, I lovemagisterial biographies. But I'm also a fan of Julian Bel 's 163-page Van Gogh: APower Seething. It should be impossible to write a fresh and concise biography ofvan Gogh, whose every twitch has been analyzed and whose every painting hasbeen blockbusterized. However, Bel pulls it off. It's a great read for its lessons ineconomy, writing, and insight.
What have been your most satisfying moments as a biographer?
My first biography was a life of the photographer Tina Modotti. In the course of
my research, I tracked down relatives of Modotti's companion when she lived in
California in the 1910s. For decades these relatives had been storing his belongings
in two trunks in the attic of their farmhouse in Oregon. They graciously let me
borrow the trunks. I drove them to my home in California, and I kept them for
three years. Inside I discovered a hundred Modotti photographs, some of them
previously unknown, along with letters and documents that cast new light on her
important years in Mexico—al great material for my book, and great for
promotion, too, because the discovery itself drew attention in the press. Today the
pictures are in the collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the
trunks are back in the attic.
Your most frustrating moment?
My most frustrating moments always have to do with politics and territoriality. For
example, because of the book ambitions of a staff member, my subject's
foundation unexpectedly denied me access to the translation of reams of material in
their possession. Think ten-page letters written in old-fashioned script in
Hungarian! I don't speak Hungarian, so that left me not knowing even what I
needed to have translated. I got around that by hiring a Hungarian teacher and aHungarian film editor, who took turns going with me to the Getty Archives. Theywould look over the documents and translate certain sections, and we'd talk. Insome ways that was better than using a translation. On the other hand, it waspricey and time-consuming, and I stil wonder if I've missed important things.
One research/marketing/attitudinal tip to share?
A Zen teacher friend of mine used to say that the way you do anything is the way
you do everything. My way seems to be the hard and messy way. I have outlines,
systems, self-imposed deadlines, etc., and they work pretty wel . Yet the piles on
the floor grow like mushrooms, and I don't always feel in control of the process.
I usual y think of this as a shortcoming. Recently, however, I read a review of a
science book about the nature of creativity. In underscoring a point made by the
authors, the reviewer cites a series of interviews with MacArthur Foundation
"genius grant" recipients. Virtual y al , she writes, have lived periods of uncertainty
about where their work was going and often slogged on "without regard for
practicality or efficiency." My tip is to organize and embrace the chaos.
Rowley Prize Finalists
BIO's Hazel Rowley Prize Committee has announced
the finalists for this year's prize:
Andrew Marble, for a biography of GeneralJohn ShalikashviliRobert Marshal , for a biography of CarlosCastaneda Rowley wrote four Jessica Max Stein, for a biography of the late Muppet performer Richard Hunt Prize-winning biographers John Matteson andLinda Leavel wil choose the winner, who wil receive the prize at the SeventhAnnual BIO Conference on June 4. Every two years, BIO gives the Hazel RowleyPrize to help a first-time biographer of real promise in four ways: through funding(the $2,000 prize); by securing a careful reading from at least one establishedagent; a year's membership in BIO; and publicity through the BIO website, TheBiographers Craft newsletter, etc. The prize is a way for BIO, a grassrootsorganization of working biographers, to advance its mission and extend its reach totalented new practitioners. The prize is named in memory of Hazel Rowley (1951-2011), born in London, educated in England and Australia, and a long-time residentof the United States. Hazel was a BIO enthusiast from its inception, understandingthe need for biographers to help each other. To learn more about Rowley and theprize, go The members of the Rowley Prize Committee are: Gayle Feldman, chair; JennyCockburn, Anne Hel er, Carl Rollyson, Roy Schreiber, Carol Sklenicka, and WilSwift.
PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award
Nancy Princenthal won the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography for
Agnes Martin: Her Life and Art. The award includes a $5,000 prize. Princenthal
and other PEN Award winners wil be honored April 11 in New York City.
Los Angeles Times Book Prizes
The Los Angeles Times announced finalists in ten categories for its Book Prizes.
The books in the Biography category are:
Fortune's Fool: The Life of John Wilkes Booth by Terry Alford Listening to Stone: The Art and Life of Isamu Noguchi by Hayden HerreraJonas Salk: A Life by Charlotte DeCroes JacobsYoung Orson: The Years of Luck and Genius on the Path to Citizen Kaneby Patrick McGil iganMary McGrory: The First Queen of Journalism by John Norris In addition, one biography was chosen in the Science and Technologycategory: The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World byAndrea Wulf. Winners wil be announced on April 9. George Washington Prize
The finalists for this year's George Washington Prize include three biographies:
The Washingtons: George and Martha, "Join'd by Friendship, Crown'd byLove" by Flora FraserWashington's Revolution: The Making of America's First Leader by RobertMiddlekauffWar of Two: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the Duel that Stunnedthe Nation by John Sedgwick The $50,000 George Washington Prize recognizes the past year's best-writtenworks on the nation's founding era, especial y those that have the potential toadvance broad public understanding of early American history. The prize issponsored by Washington College, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of AmericanHistory, and George Washington's Mount Vernon. This year's winner wilannounced on May 25.
Windham Campbell Prizes
Among the winners of this year's Windham Campbel Prizes for nonfiction is
Stanley Crouch, whose books include a biography of bebop pioneer Charlie Parker.
The first of a two-volume work, Kansas City Lightning: The Rise and Times ofCharlie Parker, was published in 2013. Awarded by Yale University, the $150,000Windham Campbel Prizes recognize fiction and nonfiction writers as wel asdramatists and are open to anyone who writes in English.
PROSE Awards
Several biographies were honored with PROSE Awards, given annual y by the
Association of Americans Publishers to honor the best in professional and
scholarly publishing in 54 categories. The Scholar Denied: W. E. B. Du Bois and
the Birth of Modern Sociology by Aldon D. Morris won the top prize, the R.R.
Hawkins Award, which recognizes outstanding scholarly works in al disciplines of
the arts and sciences. The book also won the Award for Excel ence in the Social
Sciences and the Sociology & Social Work Category. In Biography &
Autobiography, the winner was Stalin: New Biography of a Dictator by Oleg V.
Khlevniuk. Two books received honorable mention: Empire and Revolution: The
Political Life of Edmund Burke by Richard Bourke and Jonas Salk: A Life by
Charlotte DeCroes Jacobs. Winning honorable mention in the category of
Outstanding Scholarly Work by a Trade Publisher was The Weather Experiment:
The Pioneers Who Sought to See the Future by Peter Moore. Receiving honorable
mention in Popular Science & Popular Mathematics was Planck: Driven by
Vision, Broken by War by Brandon R. Brown. For US History, Fortune's Fool:
The Life of John Wilkes Booth by Terry Alford received an honorable mention.
NAACP Image Awards
Two biographies took top honors in their respective categories at the NAACP
Image Awards. The winner for Outstanding Literary Work—Non-Fiction was
Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga by Pamela Newkirk. (TBC profiled
Newkirk when her book was released; you can read the story ) In the
Outstanding Literary Work—Children category, the winner was Gordon Parks:
Outstanding Literary Work—Children category, the winner was Gordon Parks:How the Photographer Captured Black and White America by Carole BostonWeatherford and il ustrated by Jamey Christoph.
British Columbia National Award
Rosemary Sullivan's Stalin's Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of
Svetlana Alliluyeva won the British Columbia National Award for Canadian Non-
Fiction. The award, established in 2005, recognizes the best nonfiction work by a
Canadian writer and comes with a $40,000 CAD ($29,543) prize.
Call for Applications/Papers
Women's International Study Center (WISC) Residency
The Women's International Study Center (WISC) is accepting applications for its
residential fel owships at the Acequia Madre House in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The
Fel owships-in-Residence are for women and men who wish to pursue work in
WISC's five focus areas of women in the arts, sciences, cultural preservation,
business, and philanthropy. Applications are welcome from individuals or groups
needing a place to work on a publication or creative work; scholars with research
interests in a local archive or collection; project developers seeking a space to
develop a program or proposal; or others whose work relates to advancing
scholarship and awareness of the achievements of women in WISC's focus
areas. The Individual Fel owship-in-Residence averages two to six weeks in
length. Selected applicants receive a $1,000 stipend for residencies lasting four or
more weeks to offset associated costs. Each Fel ow is expected to make a public
presentation during the period in residence, and to credit WISC in any
publications or exhibitions that result from the work conducted during the
residency. The deadline for applying is March 15, 2016. For more details, go
Modernist Studies Association
For the upcoming Modernist Studies Conference, Michael Lackey is organizing a
panel on the role of modernism in the rise and legitimization of biographical
novels. His detailed cal for papers is available Those interested in this panel
should send a CV and a 250-word abstract to Lackey by March 20,
2016. The conference takes place in Pasadena, California, on November 17-20,
2016.
The Writer's Life
Who Needs a Publicist?
Perhaps the better question is, who can afford a publicist?
With publishing houses cutting back on their promotional
spending, many authors, if they have the money, are
hiring their own publicists to spread the word about their books. But is it moneywel spent? That depends. Writing for Writer's Digest, clinical neuropsychologist-turned-author Jenni Ogden recounts her experiences hiring a publicist for her firstnovel. The first decision for a writer, she says, is whether you want to try to selyour books in stores or simply go the online route. For the former, Ogdenrecommends getting a publicist, and while acknowledging the service is not cheap,she writes, "But here's the thing; if you intend to write more books, the rightpublicity wil help get your name and your writing voice known and build thosecrucial loyal readers." You can read more of Ogden's thoughts Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.
—Theodore Dreiser When Academics Write Popular History
Historian James M. McPherson acknowledges that for a scholarly writer, being
known as as a "popularizer" can be the "the kiss of death." But in an interview
with the Chronicle of Higher Education, the academic best known for his history
of the Civil War, Battle Cry of Freedom, thinks the popularizer criticism is
misguided when an author succeeds in presenting "good historical writing based
on sound scholarship" that is "accessible and meaningful to an expert as wel as a
popular audience, so long as the canons of accuracy and sound interpretation are
not violated. "If this kind of accessibility is ‘popularizing,' I consider it a badge of
honor rather than shame," McPherson says. McPherson's peeve with most
academic writing is that "too much of it is aimed at fel ow specialists and
inaccessible to a general reader," he says. "Technical terms, jargon, words that the
reader has to look up in a dictionary, opaque prose, abstract concepts, and the like
characterize a great deal of academic prose." More advice for historians: "I urge
students to think of an iceberg: six-sevenths of it is invisible below the surface but
is necessary to support the one-seventh that is visible. The same is true of
historical research and writing: Only one-seventh of the data, quotations, and other
information one finds in one's research should make it into the text, but the
invisible six-sevenths of that research is necessary to support the text." You can
read the entire interview
Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the rightorder, you can nudge the world a little.
—Tom Stoppard Research Tip
NYPL Expands Online Access
Earlier this year, the New York Public Library announced that the public can now
download free high-resolution copies of more than 180,000 items from its digital
archives of public domain material. As the NYPL website puts it, "No permission
required, no hoops to jump through: just go forth and reuse!" You can find the
public domain collection
Margaret Forster
Margaret Forster, who wrote both fiction and nonfiction, died on February 8 in
London. She was 77.
Five years after graduating from Oxford, Forster published her best-known
novel, Georgy Girl, which inspired a popular movie and song of the same name.
While continuing to write fiction, Forster also published several biographies. The
first, The Rash Adventurer: The Rise and Fall of Charles Edward Stuart, came out
in 1974. Forster's later biographies included one of Daphne Du Maurier, which
won the Fawcett Society Book Prize in 1994. In Good Wives, published in 2001,
she looked at the lives of several women in history married to famous men.
News and Notes
Last month we listed Bailey Van Hook's
Violet Oakley: An Artist's Life in the In Stores
feature, but we neglected to mention it in
News and Notes. Bailey's book is the first full-
length biography of Oakley, the only major
female artist of the beaux-arts mural
movement. Patricia Scott-Bell, whose The
Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a
Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt,
and the Struggle for Social Justice also came
out last month, scored a positive review of the
book in the New York Times Book Review,
Oakley was considered the which you can read Patricia hit the road unoffical visual historian of the this month to promote the book, making stops League of Nations.
in Washington, DC, New York City, and theFranklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library in Hyde Park, New York. On March 24, she'l be at the Atlanta History Center.
Another member with a new book that drew attention from the Times is Anne
Boyd Rioux. Her Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist made
the cover of the March 6 issue and the review mentioned the book Anne edited of
her subject's work. You can read it Carl Rollyson also reviewed Anne's
new book for the Star Tribune. New in paperback this month is Joshua Kendall's
America's Obsessives: The Compulsive Energy That Built a Nation. Out in
hardcover this month is Marlene Trestman's Fair Labor Lawyer: The
Remarkable Life of New Deal Attorney and Supreme Court Advocate Bessie
Margolin. Marlene wil be making several stops to promote the book. She also
wrote a about her relation to her subject for the Hadassah-Brandeis
Institute and taped an interview for PBS's To The Contrary With Bonnie Erbe,
which wil air this month. Marlene was also honored this month at the Jewish
Roots of Celebration! for her dedication to the New Orleans Jewish community.
Next month, new BIO member Susan Jaques is celebrating the release of her first
biography, The Empress of Art: Catherine the Great and the Transformation of
Russia. It's an art-focused biography that examines Catherine II's reign through
the lens of art and architecture. It's already picked up excel ent reviews from
Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Library Journal. We didn't receive word of the
Leon Levy Center for Biography's Conference, which was held on March 8, in
time to highlight it in the February issue, but BIO was wel represented, with
Cathy Curtis and Patrick McGilligan taking part. Look for an article on the
conference in next month's issue. While he was in TBC's hometown last month
helping to raise money for the Friends of the Santa Fe Public Library, Stephen
Grant also spoke about the First Folio of Shakespeare's works that was on display
at the New Mexico Museum of Art, then signed copies of his Collecting
Shakespeare: The Story of Henry and Emily Folger. While in Florida working on
his biography of John Steinbeck, William Souder found time to speak about one
of his previous subjects, Rachel Carson, at the Coastal Branch Library near
Seaside. Although his updated biography of Harper Lee won't be out until this
summer, Charles J. Shields has already given an interview to AL. com about
Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee from Scout to Go Set a Watchman. Read it
Justin Martin just sold the rights to his new book, A Fierce Glory, about
the Battle of Antietam. The book goes on sale on September 17, 2018, the 156th
anniversary of the battle. Also making a sale was Marc Leepson, of his untitled
biography of Barry Sadler, the Green Beret best known for writing "The Bal ad of
the Green Berets." Nigel Hamilton has been busy writing blog posts for the
Biography Society, a new scholarly organization headquartered in France. Nigel is
on the society's board, along with Joanny Moulin and Hans Renders, and his
recent posts look at and
Abigail Santamaria recently did an about
her book Joy: Poet, Seeker, and the Woman Who Captivated C. S. Lewis. Jon
Meacham appeared on Well Read TV to discuss his biography of George H. W.
Bush; you can see the interview Charlotte Jacobs has garnered two more
honors for Jonas Salk: A Life. It's a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize for
Biography and was named an honorable mention in the Biography &
Autobiography category of the PROSE Awards. Also making the list of finalists for
the Times' biography prize is Patrick McGilligan for Young Orson: The Years of
Luck and Genius on the Path to Citizen Kane. David Maraniss is also a finalist for
an LA Times award, in the History category, for his Once in a Great City: A
Detroit Story. Congratulations to al three.
In Stores
Fair Labor Lawyer: The Remarkable Life of New Duke Ellington: An American Deal Attorney and Supreme Court Advocate Bessie Composer and Icon by Steven Brower and M ercedes by M arlene Trestman The Rev. J. W. Loguen, as a Slave and as a Freeman: Tesla Vs Edison: The Life-Long A Narrative of Real Life Feud that Electrified the World by Jennifer A. Williamson and J. W. Loguen by Nigel Cawthorne (Syracuse University Press) (Chartwell Books) Queen Elizabeth II: A Celebration of Her Majesty's A Civil War Captain and His 90th Birthday Lady: A True Story of Love, Courtship, and Combat by Gene Barr (Savas Beatie) Beirut on the Bayou: Alfred Nicola, Louisiana, andthe Making of Modern Lebanon Adele Briscoe Looscan: Daughter of the Republic (SUNY Press) University of Pennsylvania Press by Laura M cLemore (Texas Christian University God Almighty Hisself: The Life and Legacy of Dick by M itchell Nathanson Burchell's Travels: The Life, Art (University of Pennsylvania Press) and Journeys of William JohnBurchell 1781-1863 Éamon de Valera: A Will to Power by Susan Buchanan by Ronan Fanning (Penguin Random House South (Harvard University Press) Young Mr. Turner: The First Forty Years, 1775-1815 Guy Martin: Portrait of a Bike (Yale University Press) by Phil Wain (Carlton Publishing Group) Cursed Legacy: The Tragic Life of Klaus Mann by Frederic Spotts María de Molina, Queen and (Yale University Press) Regent: Life and Rule in Castile-León, 1259-1321 The Rise of a Prairie Statesman : The Life and Times by Paulette Lynn Pepin of George McGovern (Lexington Books) by Thomas J. Knock (Princeton University Press) Jonathan Swift: Our Dean by Eugene Hammond America's Social Arsonist: Fred Ross and (University of Delaware Press) Grassroots Organizing in the Twentieth Century by Gabriel Thompson Jonathan Swift: Irish Blow-In (University of California Press) by Eugene Hammond (University of Delaware Press) Alben Barkley: A Life in Politics by James K. Libbey E. G. Barnhill: Florida (University Press of Kentucky) The Grand Tour: The Life and Music of George (University Press of Florida) by Rich Kienzle (Dey Street Books) The Making of an SS Killer: TheLife of Colonel Alfred Filbert, The First Nazi: Erich Ludendorff, The Man Who 1905-1990 Made Hitler Possible by Will Brownell, Denise Drace-Brownell, and Alex (Cambridge University Press) Rovt (Counterpoint) Shadow on the Mountain: NancyPfister, Dr. William Styler, and Frederick the Great: King of Prussia the Murder of Aspen's Golden by Stephen Singular and JoyceSingular Charlotte Brontë: A Fiery Heart (St. M artin's Press) by Claire Harman (Knopf) Butterfly in the Rain: The 1927Abduction and Murder of Marion The Immortal Irishman: The Irish Revolutionary Who Became an American Hero by James L. Neibaur (Rowman & Littlefield) (Houghton M ifflin Harcourt) The Demon of Geopolitics: How David Astor Karl Haushofer "Educated" Hitler and Hess by Holger H. Herwig (Rowman & Littlefield) The Romanovs: 1613-1918by Simon Sebag M ontefiore Soulmaker: The Times of Lewis Hine by Alexander Nemerov Cowboy Song: The Authorised Biography of Philip (Princeton University Press) Lynott by Graeme Thomson John Owen and English Puritanism: Experiences of Defeatby Crawford Gribben Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements (Oxford University Press) by Bob M ehr (Da Capo) Clarina Nichols: FrontierCrusader for Women's Rights At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and by Diane Eickhoff Apricot Cocktails with Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, MauriceMerleau-Ponty and Others A Notorious Woman: Anne Royall by Sarah Bakewell in Jacksonian America by Elizabeth J. Clapp (University of Virginia Press) The Legends Club: Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski,Jim Valvano, and an Epic College Basketball Rivalry Casanova the Irresistible by John Feinstein by Phillippe Sollers (University of Illinois Press) The Profiteers: Bechtel and the Men Who Built the Veit Harlan: The Life and Work of a Nazi Filmmaker by Frank Noack (University (Simon & Schuster) Press of Kentucky) Ross Calvin, Interpreter of the American Southwest The Medici: Power, Money, and Ambition in the Italian Renaissanceby Paul Strathern Boys Among Men: How the Prep-to-Pro Generation Redefined the NBA and Sparked a Basketball Cass Hite: The Life of an Old by Jonathan Abrams Prospector (Crown Archetype) by James Knipmeyer (University of Utah Press) The King and Queen of Malibu: The True Story of theBattle for Paradise Undiagnosed, Unscrupulous and by David K. Randall Unbeatable: The Paul Haber Storyby M onty Nereim The Violet Hour: Great Writers at the End by Katie Roiphe (The Dial Press) The Cooler King: The True Storyof William Ash, the Greatest The Civil Wars of Julia Ward Howe: A Biography Escaper of World War II by Elaine Showalter by Patrick Bishop (Simon & Schuster) (The Overlook Press) Fighting for General Lee: Confederate General Rufus Stanley Fish, America's Enfant Barringer and the North Carolina Cavalry Brigade Terrible: The Authorized by Sheridan R. Barringer by Gary A. Olson (Southern Illinois University John Quincy Adams: Militant Spirit by James Traub (Basic Books) Brave as a Lion: The Life andTimes of Field Marshal Hugh Hustle, Loyalty & Respect: The World of John Cena Gough, 1st Viscount Gough by Steve Pantaleo by Christopher Brice (Helion and Company) Harry T. Burleigh: From the Spiritual to the Harlem Luigi Nono: A Composer in Renaissance by Jean E Snyder by Carola Nielinger-Vakil (University of Illinois Press) (Cambridge University Press) The Selling of the Babe: The Deal That Changed Bernard Madoff and His Baseball and Created a Legend Accomplices: Anatomy of a Con by Lionel S. Lewis (Thomas Dunne Books) DiMag & Mick: Sibling Rivals, Yankee Blood In Search of Kings and Conquerors: Gertrude Bell and the Archaeology of the Middle Eastby Lisa Cooper Is that Kafka?: 99 Finds by Reiner Stach, translated by Kurt Beals(New Directions) Comrade Huppert: A Poet inStalin's World Godfather of the Music Business: Morris Levy by George Huppert by Richard Carlin (Indiana University Press) (University of M ississippi Press) Matthew Flinders, Maritime Franklin D. Roosevelt: The War Years, 1939-1945 Explorer of Australia by Roger Daniels by Kenneth M organ (University of Illinois Press) (Bloomsbury Academic) Finley Ball: How Two Baseball Outsiders Turned the The Christian Soldier: The Life of Oakland A's into a Dynasty and Changed the Game Lt. Col. Bernard William Vann, V.C., M.C. and Bar, Croix de Guerre avec palmes (Regnery History) by Charles Beresford (Helion and Company) Stan Levey: Jazz Heavyweight by Frank R. Hayde Big Jim Larkin: Hero or (Santa M onica Press) Wrecker?by Emmet O'Connor Conan Doyle and the Mysterious World of Light (University College Dublin Press) by M att Wingett (Life is Amazing) Marie Stopes: The Scientist WhoIgnited a Sexual Revolution The Practical Prophet: Bishop Ronald O. Hall of by Clare Debenham Hong Kong and His Legacies by M oira Chan-Yeung (Hong Kong University Press) The Boy in the Mask: The HiddenWorld of Lawrence of Arabia Real Love, No Drama: The Music of Mary J. Blige by Dick Benson-Gyles by Danny Alexander (The Lilliput Press) (University of Texas Press) Broken Vows: Tony Blair The Enver Hoxha: The Iron Fist of Albania Tragedy of Power by Blendi Fevziu Lost Rockers: Broken Dreams and Crashed Careers A Girl's Got to Breathe: The Life by Steven Blush and Paul Rachman of Teresa Wright (powerHouse Books) by Donald Spoto(University Press of M ississippi) Wounded Lions: Joe Paterno, Jerry Sandusky, andthe Crises in Penn State Athletics From Silk to Silicon: The Story of by Ronald A. Smith Globalization Through Ten (University of Illinois Press) Extraordinary Livesby Jeffrey E. Garten The King's Bed: Ambition and Intimacy in the Court of Charles IIby Don Jordan and M ichael Walsh Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and theSterilization of Carrie Buck Stealing Games: How John McGraw Transformed Baseball with the 1911 New York Giants by M aury Klein(Bloomsbury) The Devil's Diary: Alfred Rosenberg and the StolenSecrets of the Third Reichby Robert K. Wittman and David Kinney (HarperCollins) America's Obsessives: The Compulsive The Winter Sun Shines In: A Life of Energy That Built a Nation Masaoka Shiki by Joshua Kendall (Grand Central Publishing) (Columbia University Press) C. S. Lewis—A Life: Eccentric Genius, Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of His Reluctant Prophet by Alister M cGrath by Siegfried Kracauer, translated by Gwenda David and Eric M osbacher(Zone Books) 81 Days Below Zero: The Incredible SurvivalStory of a World War II Pilot in Alaska's John Vassos: Industrial Design for Frozen Wilderness Modern Life by Brian M urphy (Da Capo Press) by Danielle Shapiro (University of M innesota Press) Being Nixon: A Man Divided by Evan Thomas The Making of John Lennon: The Untold Story of the Rise and Fall ofthe Beatles Hissing Cousins: The Lifelong Rivalry of by Francis Kenny Eleanor Roosevelt and Alice Roosevelt Longworth by M arc Peyser and Timothy Dwyer Bushwhacker Belles: The Sisters, Wives, and Girlfriends of the MissouriGuerrillas Against the Tide: The Turbulent Times of a (Pelican Publishing Company) by J.H. Sullivan (Strategic M edia Books) Marilyn Monroe: Private andConfidential Sir Terry Wogan: A Life of Laughter by M ichelle M organ by Emily Herbert (Skyhorse Publishing) The Death of Caesar: The Story of Shakespeare's Bastard: The Life of Sir History's Most Famous Assassination William Davenant by Barry Strauss by Simon Andrew Stirling (Simon & Schuster) (The History Press) Simone de Beauvoir: Creating a Feminist Princes at War: The Bitter Battle Inside Existence in the World Britain's Royal Family in the Darkest Days of by Sandrine Sanos (Oxford University Press) by Deborah Cadbury (PublicAffairs) Dream Song: The Life of John Berrymanby Paul M ariani Billie Holiday: (Trinity University Press) The Musician and the Mythby John Szwed The Quiet Australian: The Story of Teddy Hudleston, unsunghero of the RAF Sox & Martin: The Most Famous Team in Drag Racing The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot:A True Story About the Birth of Tyranny Hold Tight Gently: Michael Callen, Essex in North Korea Hemphill, and the Battlefield of AIDS by Blaine Harden by M artin Duberman Under Their Very Eyes: The Astonishing Queen Elizabeth II: Crowns, Life of Tom Hamblin, Bible Courier to Horses and Corgis Arab Nations by David Arscott by Deborah M eroff All The Wild That Remains: Edward Abbey, Stalin: New Biography of a Dictator Wallace Stegner, and the American West by Oleg V. Khlevniuk, translated by by David Gessner Nora Seligman Favorov (Yale University Press) Jean Vanier: Logician of the Heart Anzac Sons: The Story of Five Brothers by M ichael W. Higgins in the War to End all Wars (Liturgical Press) by Allison Paterson (Big Sky Publishing) Inventing Eleanor: The Medieval and Post-Medieval Image of Eleanor of Aquitaine The Last Knight Errant: Sir Edward by M ichael R. Evans Woodville and the Age of Chivalry (Bloomsbury Academic) by Christopher Wilkins (I.B. Tauris) Troupers of the Gold Coast: The Rise of LottaCrabtree Alexander Yakovlev: The Man Whose by Constance M ayfield Rourke Ideas Delivered Russia from (Skyhorse Publishing) Communismby Richard Pipes The Five George Masons (Northern Illinois University Press) by Lammot du Pont Copeland and Richard K.
M cM aster The Lives of Muhammad (University of Virginia Press) by Kecia Ali (Harvard University Press) John Farnhamby Jane Gazzo Alice & Eiffel: A New History of Early (Random House Australia) Cinema and the Love Story Kept Secretfor a Century Van Johnson: MGM's Golden Boy by Janelle Dietrick by Ronald L. Davis (University Press of M ississippi) Gunfighter in Gotham: Bat Masterson's Lydia Thompson: Queen of Burlesque New York City Years by Robert K. DeArment (University of Oklahoma Press) Helen Clark: Inside Stories Becoming Freud: The Making of a by Claudia Pond Eyley and Dan Salmon Psychoanalyst (Auckland University Press) by Adam Phillips (Yale University Press) The Mapmaker's Wife: A True Tale Of Love, Murder, And Survival Mark Rothko: Toward the Light in The Amazon in the Chapel by Robert Whitaker by Annie Cohen-Solal (Yale University Press) Mel and Sue: The Biography Franz Kafka: The Poet of Shame and by Tina Campanella by Saul Friedländer (Yale University Press) James Dean: Rebel Lifeby John Howlett William Carlos Williams: (Plexus Publishing) A New World Naked by Paul M ariani The Irish Brotherhood: John F. Kennedy, His (Trinity University Press) Inner Circle, and the Improbable Rise to thePresidency The Art of the Woman: The Life and by Helen O'Donnell and Kenneth O'Donnell Work of Elisabet Ney by Emily Fourmy Cutrer (Texas A&M University Press) American Warlord: A True Story Leonard Bernstein: An American by Allen Shawn (Yale University Press) The Democratic Soldier: The Life of GeneralGustave P. Cluseret Eugene O'Neill: A Life in Four Acts by William J. Phalen by Robert M . Dowling (Vij Books India) (Yale University Press) Riding the Wind: The Life of A. O. Lewis-Roberts 1896-1966 by Robert Lawton (M ereo Books) One Man Grand Band: The Lyric Life ofRon Hynesby Harvey Sawler (Breakwater Books) Moses Holden 1777-1864: The Preston Astronomer Who Was Never Eclipsed by Stephen R. Halliwell (Vanguard Press) Amanuensis: A person whose employment is to write what another dictates, or to
copy what another has written: Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
(1913).
In the course of researching Svetlana [Alliluyeva]'s life,I interviewed over 40 people. The geography I covered wasas vast as the history. I traveled to Russia, Georgia,England and across the US, scouring archives and huntingdown interview subjects.
Not unexpectedly, the most resonant part of myjourney was my trip to Moscow, in the course of which Ivisited the Kremlin; Svetlana's Model School 25; MoscowUniversity where she studied; the Gorky Institute whereshe worked; the House on the Embankment, where she livedwith her two children (it was formerly nicknamed the Houseof Detention because so many of its elite were sent tocamps or executed in the 1930s and 1940s); the Government archives where I read her poignant adolescent letters toher Papa; the Memorial Archives dedicated to victims ofthe Gulag, her friends among them.
I was time travelling into the past, examining a lifethat spanned the history of the 20th century. It was allthere: the Gulag; Stalin's Terror of the late 1930s; WorldWar II and the tragic cost to Russia; Stalin's anti-Semitic plots of the 1940s; the Cold War and its ruthlessintrigues on both sides. Svetlana was the subject in the foreground of mybook, but there was always that murderous backdrop. Thechallenge was to keep the two worlds in sync. Rosemary Sullivan, "Writing Stalin's Daughter Was An
Adventure Of A Lifetime"
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