Episode 13: Homage to Deirdre Bair and the Purpose of Biography
My tribute to one of the great biographers of our time and why her work matters, and why biography matters.
4 Jul 202015min
How I Became a Biographer
A quick explanation of how it all started with Marilyn Monroe.
27 Jun 202014min
The Whys and Wherefores of Documentary Biography
How dating all the days of a life provide a different way of approaching what is left out in other biographies.
14 Jun 20209min
Episode 9: How To Begin a Biography: The Case of William Faulkner
I look at how biographers have begun their biographies and the merits of different kinds of openings and why biography has been called factitious.
6 Jun 202021min
Episode 8: How to End a Biography, The Case of Sylvia Plath
I read from the last paragraphs of Plath biographies, commenting on them, and explain my own choices in writing American Isis: The Life and Art of Sylvia Plath and The Last Days of Sylvia Plath.
30 Mai 202022min
Episode 7: Prefaces to Biography
Who is the biographer? And why does it matter?
24 Mai 202027min
Building a Better Biography: How to Capture the Whole Man
I give a sense of the interplay between Faulkner the man, his fiction, and his film writing.
16 Mai 202024min
