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
Sep 27, 2023 • 11min
An Emergency Podcast: What To Do When You Don’t Have Primary Sources
My response to an email asking me for help
Sep 24, 2023 • 10min
A preview of coming attractions and of my work in progress on presidential biography
Forthcoming podcasts on new biographies of Betty Friedan, Warner Baxter, Alex Comfort, Eleanor Powell, Jack Ruby, T. S. Eliot and my working in progress on presidential biography
Sep 17, 2023 • 45min
FDR Unmasked: What the Biographers Missed
My conversation with neurologist Steven Lomazow about his revelatory book about FDR and the impact of his health on biographies of Roosevelt
Jul 27, 2023 • 17min
Fair Use Biography
Just remember: You are the one in charge of fair use. Don’t give your rights away.
Jul 16, 2023 • 40min
Finding Ursula Parrott: One biographer’s quest.
My talk with Marsha Gordon about her sensational new biography of an important writer you probably have never heard of.
Jul 9, 2023 • 24min
The Different Discourses of Biographers and Subjects
Knowing your subject may mean knowing his or her discourse, and the same can be said of reading biographies when considering the voices of biographer and subject.
Jul 2, 2023 • 26min
The Way I Work
How I go about each day as a biographer, the sources I use, as I assemble my own archive and write my biography—in this case the one I’m working on now: Ronald Colman: Hollywood’s Gentleman Hero
Jun 25, 2023 • 22min
What It Takes To Do Biography
Find out
Jun 10, 2023 • 43min
Gabriella Kelly-Davies on writing biographies of scientists and doctors and much more
A wide ranging discussion of how to write about science and medicine in a biographical narrative, with some talk of other biographers including Kai Bird and Hermione Lee
Jun 3, 2023 • 43min
What memory tells us about biography and doesn’t.
A continuation of the previous podcast about the variables in understanding a writer and his world.
