A Life in Biography
Carl Rollyson
Talks and interviews about the life of biography as experienced by a biographer over forty years and fourteen biographies, dealing with subjects ranging from Sylvia Plath to William Faulkner, Marilyn Monroe to Susan Sontag, and much more.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Apr 16, 2022 • 23min
Cynthia Ozick and “The Biographer’s Hat”
What happens when biographers become the subjects of fiction
Apr 8, 2022 • 51min
Why John C. Calhoun still matters: a talk with his biographer, Robert Elder
There is much more to Calhoun, that proponent of slavery, than you might imagine.
Apr 2, 2022 • 39min
The poetry of biography, and the biography of poetry, with Iris Jamahl Dunkle
The poet as biographer and the biographer as poet
Mar 27, 2022 • 39min
Talking with Lee Kravetz about his fresh, intriguing depiction of Sylvia Plath and her world
A follow up to my New York Sun review of Lee Kravetz’s marvelously inventive novel about Sylvia Plath and the conditions of her life and her creativity.
Mar 19, 2022 • 36min
A conversation with David Beveridge, narrator of volume 2 of The Life of William Faulkner
What goes into an audiobook: the commitment, the performance, the technical details and equipment, and why, in this case, it matters that we hear Faulkner’s voice.
Mar 12, 2022 • 16min
The Story of My Psychoanalysis and Sylvia Plath
An excerpt from my work in progress, The Making of Sylvia Plath
Mar 5, 2022 • 7h 37min
Hemingway’s Widow: A Conversation with Timothy Christian about his new biography of Mary Hemingway
A conversation with Timothy Christian, who provides new insight into the Hemingway marriage, and into the way biographies are constructed and managed between biographers and their sources.
Feb 26, 2022 • 45min
A conversation with Kathleen Brady about her biography of the saints of Assisi: Francis and Clare
Learn how Kathleen Brady did Plutarch proud and managed, as well, to write a biography for our times.
Feb 23, 2022 • 8min
Another biography for Black History Month.
The Recovered Life of Isaac Anderson, a well composed biography by Alicia K. Jackson, published by University Press of Mississippi.
Feb 19, 2022 • 46min
A conversation with James McGrath Morris, author of Tony Hillerman: A Life
A wide ranging talk about Hillerman and Morris’s other subjects and how they fit into his conception of biography.
