A Life in Biography

Latest Episodes:

A Biography in Progress: Beth Phillips discusses Clifford Odets and why his work and life matter Jun 26, 2022

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What it takes for a biographer to do justice to a major American playwright

The Biography I did not write Jun 18, 2022

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It is probably just as well

To quote Robert Caro: “Turn Ever Page” Jun 11, 2022

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The history of publishing Plath’s letters and why it matters to biography

A talk with Alison Macor about her new book, The Making of The Best Years of Our Lives Jun 04, 2022

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A lesson here for how to write group biography as well the history of an epic film.

War, trauma, and art in the life of Rudolf H. Sauter, and the process of biography May 28, 2022

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A wide ranging discussion of an artist interned during World War I and what he made of his life and art coming out of that trauma.

A Faulknerian novel in which Faulkner appears May 21, 2022

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What happens when a novelist reads, writes like his subject, and puts that subject in a novel?

The Gatekeepers May 12, 2022

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You know what I mean, don’t you?

A conversation with Michelle Morgan one of the masters of Marilyn Monroe biography May 07, 2022

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We delve deeply into a kind of time capsule of 1956, when Marilyn met the Queen and so much else

A conversation with David O. Stewart about the worlds of biography and fiction Apr 30, 2022

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The overlapping worlds of biography and fiction and how they are inter-dependent

A talk with master biographer, Nigel Hamilton. Apr 23, 2022

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About the making of a biographer and what keeps him at it.