A Life in Biography

Faulkner’s performance of gayness, why it was important, how it enters his work, and why a book such as Gay Faulkner destablizes biography is a good thing.

Why write another biography of? Three biographers answer the question for Robert E. Lee, Oliver Cromwell, and Winston Churchill

Part of a continuing series on the biographical novel and the way it contributes to our understanding of biographical subjects—this time with Dina Davis who does justice to Assia Wevill

A wide-ranging discussion with Karen Christensen, publisher and biographer, about libel, indemnity clauses, the widow Eliot and others widows and wives.

A wide ranging discussion of how biographers treat the issue of interpretation, how much to comment as opposed to just telling the story.

I explain why in terms of my own experience researching and writing about the life of Sylvia Plath

I explain why in terms of my own experience working on Sylvia Plath

A wide-ranging discussion of Billy Wilder’s career, why McBride decided to do a biographical/critical study of the director, and the different objectives of biographical and critical studies in view of McBride’s own work on Frank Capra, John Ford, Steven Spielberg, Orson Welles, and others.

How the biographical novel got started, what it is now, and where we are headed.

Three new biographies that say so much about the art of biography.