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
Fair Use Biography: Forget about the Don’ts in Most Cases. Just go ahead.
My account for forty years of dealing with fair use, biographical subjects, and publishers.
21 Jun 202031min
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
