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
Feb 27, 2021 • 33min
Episode 48: A discussion with Sydney Stern about her book, The Brothers Mankiewicz
What it takes to write a biography of the Mankiewicz brothers and other issues biographers encounter.
Feb 20, 2021 • 30min
Episode 47: Justice to Charmian London, a writer who was much more than Jack London’s wife
A wide ranging discussion of Iris Jamahl Dunkle’s new biography, including reflections on the biographer as villain and how biography can be an act of restitution.
Feb 13, 2021 • 40min
Episode 46: How I Became A Biographer: A conversation with Richard Bradford
I speak with Richard Bradford about how he became a biographer, the role biography should play in literary study, and why he chose to write about Ernest Hemingway, Patricia Highsmith and others.
Feb 6, 2021 • 39min
Episode 45: William Faulkner’s Civil War, a talk with Michael Gorra about his new book
All things biographical and how Faulkner, the man and the writer, approached the Civil War.
Jan 31, 2021 • 48min
Episode 44: The Past Is Never Dead
How does a biographer recreate the past the milieu of a subject’s life. I draw on my own experience in biographies of William Faulkner, Lillian Hellman, Rebecca West, Michael Foot, and others.
Jan 23, 2021 • 39min
Episode 43: Talking with William Souder about Mad at the World, his new biography of John Steinbeck
William Souder explains his attraction to Steinbeck, what it takes to do a biography, the audience you can expect to reach as a biographer, and much much more.
Jan 17, 2021 • 40min
Episode 42: Talking Faulkner biography with Larry Wells, author of the memoir, In Faulkner’s Shadow
A wide ranging discussion of Larry Wells’s memories of the Faulkner family, of Faulkner biographers, Joseph Blotner and Carvel Collins, and what it takes to research and write biography, which often feels like a Henry James story.
Jan 9, 2021 • 31min
Episode 41: Heather Clark on her new Plath Biography.
We talk about how Heather Clark became interested in Plath, how she came to write the biography, how biography is a product of its age, and much more.
Jan 2, 2021 • 44min
Episode 40: John Bryant on his new multi-volume Melville biography
A wide-ranging discussion of biography, how to work on literary figures Melville’s “black consciousness” and much more.
Dec 29, 2020 • 15min
Part 3 of my interview with Alexis Coe
Slavery, capitalism, what went into the making of Washington’s life and those of his contemporaries—plus Alexis Coe puts THE BIG QUESTION to me.
