A Life in Biography
Activity Overview
Episode publication activity over the past year
Episodes
Words Often Applied to Biography
29 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Authorized/Unauthorized; Gossipy/Salacious/; Plodding/Workmanlike/Revisionist
3 Questions You Should Never Ask About Biography
22 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
1. Is the subject worthy of a biography. 2. Is the subject too small? 3. Why another biography of?
Episode 19: Proposing a Biography
15 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Why it is important to do a proposal? Why not just write the book? This podcast tells you why.
Episode 18: Biography, The Historical Present, and You
08 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When does it make sense to use the present tense in a biography? Examples from the work of Noel Riley Fitch, William Faulkner, and yours truly.
Marilyn Monroe and the Idea of Biography
01 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Biography is its own form of knowledge, a view that many readers and reviewers of biography are reluctant to acknowledge, or do not even consider.
Episode 16: My Listeners Respond
25 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Listeners who want to know how to navigate the varied access to sources with different subjects, or how to present a new vision without new sources.
The Gaps and Bulges of Biography
18 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What to do when not all parts of your biographical subject’s life are equal, when the first part of the life seems the most exciting, for example, o...
Episode 14: Who Deserves A Biography?
11 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The answer to who deserves a biography is everyone, or anyone. It all depends on the materials you have, if the story moves you, and you know how to t...
Episode 13: Homage to Deirdre Bair and the Purpose of Biography
04 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
My tribute to one of the great biographers of our time and why her work matters, and why biography matters.
How I Became a Biographer
27 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A quick explanation of how it all started with Marilyn Monroe.
Fair Use Biography: Forget about the Don’ts in Most Cases. Just go ahead.
21 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
My account for forty years of dealing with fair use, biographical subjects, and publishers.
The Whys and Wherefores of Documentary Biography
14 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How dating all the days of a life provide a different way of approaching what is left out in other biographies.
Episode 9: How To Begin a Biography: The Case of William Faulkner
06 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
I look at how biographers have begun their biographies and the merits of different kinds of openings and why biography has been called factitious.
Episode 8: How to End a Biography, The Case of Sylvia Plath
30 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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 Syl...
Episode 7: Prefaces to Biography
24 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Who is the biographer? And why does it matter?
Building a Better Biography: How to Capture the Whole Man
16 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
I give a sense of the interplay between Faulkner the man, his fiction, and his film writing.
Sylvia Plath, Meet Rebecca West
10 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
I explore why it is that Sylvia Plath never seemed to be aware of Rebecca West, a world class writer, who still has so much to say to the readers of P...
A Tale of Two Biographies: The Last Days of Sylvia Plath and The Life of William Faulkner
02 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Why I wrote these two books and what in the world Plath and Faulkner have to do with the world around us.
Episode 3: Faulkner Preludes
25 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How I began my work on Faulkner; what I mean by an intertextual biography; why Joan Crawford matters in a Faulkner biography; Faulkner as diplomat; wh...
A Life in Biography: Episode 2: Why Care About William Faulkner?
17 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A two-minute podcast. Call it “The Elevator Pitch.”
The Last Days of Sylvia Plath
12 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In about twelve minutes I talk about what it was like in the last days of Sylvia Plath, how people have reacted to her death, and why I think it wasn’...