Stacy Schiff | Brian Jay Jones

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BIOpics

Posted on June 6, 2016 | 1 comment

I’m back from the 2016 BIO Conference in Richmond — and what a terrific three days it was. As promised, I tried to take as many pictures as I could, blasting away with my iPhone, sometimes from the back of the room. We’ll have video of some of this weekend’s extraordinary moments here sometime soon — but meanwhile, here are a few highlights, taken at the panels I attended (and there were LOTS more, trust me!):

The opening plenary session featured two master biographers discussing the craft, mulling over everything from whether you need to like your particular subject as a person (answer: no) to whether a biography can be truly definitive (answer: probably not). Oh, and did I tell you who the two biographers were? A pair of aces, with a list of awards as long as your arm: Annette Gordon-Reed, who won the Pulitzer Prize for The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, and T.J. Stiles, whose Custer’s Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America won this year’s Pulitzer for History. And as I think the photos below convey, what a lively, wonderful, invigorating session it was.

Next, I attended a panel moderated by my pal and colleague Marc Leepson on the Future of Research. Are you one of those researchers who wants everything in a library available digitally and on-line right now? Librarians and archivists want that, too — but stress that it’s not likely to happen as quickly as they’d like, either.

Kathy Jordan (Library of Virginia), Paige Newman (Virginia Historical Society) and Marc Leepson.

Then it was over to one of the most lively and entertaining panel discussions of the day, as James Atlas, Blake Bailey, Stacy Schiff, and D.T. Max reflected on how they chose their subjects. And laughed . . and laughed . . . and laughed. Wonderful.

The lunch session featured a show-stopper of a speech by the winner of the 2016 BIO Award: Claire Tomalin, biographer of Jane Austen, Samuel Pepys, Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens and so many more. At 82, she’s as spry as ever. Take a look:

After lunch, I was off to another spectacularly good panel discussion (moderated with aplomb by Dean King) on Writing Family Biographies — in this case presidential or royal families — featuring Nigel Hamilton, Kitty Kelley, and Andrew Lownie. The conversation quickly evolved to authorized vs. unauthorized biography, and then to the legal nuances needed to ensure you protect yourself from legal challenges (hint: take pictures and write personal letters). As you can see from the photos below, this was another panel that knew how to have a good time:

Finally, at Saturday’s closing reception, we announced the winner of the 2016 Plutarch Award, the only international literary award presented by biographers for biography. It went to Rosemary Sullivan for Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva. After learning only a few weeks back that she was the winner of the award — even we didn’t know who the winner would be until the ballot was closed in May — Rosemary went out of her way to come in all the way from Chile to attend the conference and make a lovely acceptance speech. Well done.

As the outgoing president (and congratulations to Will Swift for presiding over this year’s conference so spectacularly), it was really nice to attend the conference from in front of the curtain, rather than keeping tabs on the goings-and-comings that go on behind the curtain. My thanks to the hardworking bunch at BIO who made the conference so special, and so wonderful. And thanks, Richmond, for having us.

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Posted in Biographers International Organization, conferences, Uncategorized

Tagged Biographers International Organization, Plutarch Award, Stacy Schiff, TJ Stiles

Places To Go, Things to Do

Posted on March 28, 2014 | Comments Off

I’m hanging my head in embarrassment that I’ve let the ol’ blog lie fallow for the past few weeks. For shame, Doc, for shame.

First off, I’ve got several folks to publicly thank and acknowledge. I’ve thanked them all privately, but the events were so terrific that they deserve a public mention as well.

In mid-March, I had the great pleasure of being one of the twenty authors invited to the Literary Feast, a three-day fundraiser for literacy programs sponsored by the Broward Public Library Foundation. Our hosts took great care of us, the company was grand, and the weather . . . well, considering it was 21 degrees when I left Washington for Ft. Lauderdale, the weather just could’t be beat. In fact, it was while griping about East Coast weather in a shuttle bus that several of us discovered we had come in from the DC region; besides me, there was John Shaw (author of JFK in the Senate) and Andrew Carroll (a multitasking machine who’s latest is Here Is Where), and making their acquaintance was one of the high points of the trip. As an added bonus, I also spent a good part of one reception hanging out with the super cool Rupert Holmes (yes, that Rupert Holmes) and never once made a Pina Colada joke.

The day after I returned, I had the pleasure of speaking at the Arts Club of Washington, one of DC’s really great (and under appreciated!) venues, housed in a 19th century mansion that once served as the home of President James Monroe. I had to task my host for the evening, the poet Sandra Beasley, with running my slideshow from my laptop from her seat in the center aisle–and with our unspoken language of arched eyebrows and nods and finger waves, things ran smoothly. (In fact, I thought it was one of the best presentations I’ve done in a while.) My thanks, then, to Sandra and the Arts Club for having me. It was a terrific evening — and if you find yourself in DC, locate the club over on I Street and drop in.

Up next for me: I’ll be at the newly-renovated Gaithersburg Library on April 16, starting at 7 p.m. It’s free and open to the public, and it’ll be a lot of fun. Here’s a bit of video of me (sitting in my basement office) giving a sneak preview of the April 16 event:

And as an added bonus, here I am again, talking about Jim Henson in Maryland:

Finally, on the weekend of May 17-18, I’ll be attending the Biographers International Organization’s annual conference in Boston. I’ll admit to being a bit biased about this one — I’m BIO’s vice president, after all — but BIO’s conferences are always informative and entertaining, with first-rate panelists and moderators. I’ll be sitting on two panels, one on book tours, the other on working with the family of your subject.

Even better, the recipient of this year’s BIO Award — given to individuals who’ve made a significant contribution to the art of biography — is Stacy Schiff, whose Cleopatra: A Life is an art unto itself. Plus, Stacy’s a class act, and a dynamite speaker — and you’ll get to hear her at lunch at the BIO conference. Really, that should be enough to convince you to attend right there.