A Life in Biography

Samuel R. Delany presents the writer as biographical subject and what it is the biographer needs to know about literary world and how reputations are made. But first a discussion of a movie, The Wife

What does it mean to be powerful in the literary world, and in what sense should the biographer take it seriously?

The correspondence with Samuel R. Delany continues, with many digressions, but all of them pertaining to biography and the work it can accomplish

The Sontag saga continues

The seventh part of what is turning out to be a saga—listened to its entirety it amounts to a class on biography that you can take for free.

A talk about Ed O’Shea’s recent book and what matters about Seamus Heaney’s experience in America

An intervention by the New York Times and the story of a club of unauthorized biographers

I continue the debate with Samuel R. Delany, reading from our correspondence and talking about it. In this episode, Sontag has her say.

Samuel R. Delany continues to point out the error of my ways, and I respond with my own letters and commentary.

I continue to read and comment on my correspondence with Samuel R. Delany concerning the proper behavior of a biographer.

The correspondence of Carl Rollyson and Samuel R. Delany, a latter day version of Oscar’s Wilde’s The Critic as Artist, in the form reminiscent of a Platonic dialogue.

The ethics of biography apply not only to the biographer but also to those who choose to cooperate with a biographer and those who do not.

Pay attention to the subtitle of Finding Jackie: A Life Reinvented. How Oline Eaton deals with the making and unmaking and making of a fascinating life.

We celebrate the late Marion Meade, novelist and biographer of Dorothy Parker, Buster Keaton, Woody Allen, and others by her fellow biographers and friends.

Some penetrating questions and comments on my practice as a biography in an interview with Karen Christensen

My resident Pacific Islands historian/biographer, Doug Munro,, discusses the successes and failures with sources, in the archives and in person, and I respond with my own tales of horror and deliverance

Part 2 of a conversation with Pacific Islands historian/biographer, Doug Munro, about the cross overs between history and biography, and on the polarization in Australia and here.

Historical archeologist Jack Elliott explains why we need a new biography of Faulkner’s great-grandfather. Listen to an authentic Mississippi voice!

A conversation about why history was not enough for Doug Munro, and why he turned to biography, which is also quite not enough

A year end podcast reflecting on the contingencies of biography.

My conversation with J. Michael Lennon, Mailer biographer and interlocutor reflecting on a lifetime with his subject.

Richard Selzer inspired the work of a generation of doctor/writers. Listen to how he did it, and how his biography is shaping up.

A wide-ranging conversation about what you might call the music of biography.

I talk with Norman Lock about his American novel series, and why it should matter to biographers. This is my longest, most searching podcast.

Tennessee Williams, copyright, fair use, research—Ellen Brown covers it all