Biographers International Organization has a worldwide membership of biographers. We also welcome those working on documentaries and biographies for young adults or children. Whether you're a writer, editor, or agent, first-timer or veteran, published or unpublished, aspiring or merely looking, BIO is here for you.
Biographers International Organization (BIO) aims to promote the art and craft of biography, cultivate a diverse community of biographers, encourage public interest in biography, and provide educational and fellowship opportunities that support the work of biographers worldwide.
All biographers know how intimidating it can be to build a reading resource, which includes networking, cross-referencing, managing a rapidly growing file of material, remembering to document every source, and more.
Biographers International Organization (BIO) invites applications for its 2026 fellowships and prizes, which support and celebrate the craft of biography at every stage—from dissertation research to debut works and beyond.
Biographers International Organization has a worldwide membership of biographers. We also welcome those working on documentaries and biographies for young adults or children. Whether you're a …
All biographers know how intimidating it can be to build a reading resource, which includes networking, cross-referencing, managing a rapidly growing file of material, remembering to document every …
Named for Frances (“Frank”) Anne Rollin Whipper, one of America’s first recorded African American biographers, BIO’s Rollin Fellowship seeks to help remediate the disproportionate reflection of Black lives and voices in published biography and to encourage diversity in the field.
2026 Plutarch Award Longlist Announced A panel of judges from BIO has selected 10 nominees for the 14th annual Plutarch Award, the only international literary award for biography judged exclusively by biographers. “The Plutarch Award Committee is delighted to offer our selections for the ten best biographies published in 2025.
As biographers, we could adopt this method by exploring the contradictory details of our subjects’ lives and times in all their messy individuality. The point is to look at differences all the way down, not to make generalizations, but instead to examine specificity for the sake of personal identity.
The 2025 Plutarch Award longlist has been decided. This year’s award committee consists of BIO members Ruth Franklin (chair), Vanda Krefft, Lance Richardson, David Maraniss, and Lisa Napoli. “The 2025 Plutarch Committee reviewed close to 150 books by first-time and experienced biographers, issued by major presses and small academic publishers, on subjects who made their lives in worlds as ...
Those eight biographers who met in 1986 were on the cusp of what would become an explosion of Black biographies, memoirs and autobiographies. They knew and we know that those stories were always there. They just weren’t being published by the big publishing houses.
Named for Frances (“Frank”) Anne Rollin Whipper, one of America’s first recorded African American biographers, BIO’s Rollin Fellowship seeks to help remediate the disproportionate reflection …
Biographers International Organization (BIO) aims to promote the art and craft of biography, cultivate a diverse community of biographers, encourage public interest in biography, and provide educational …
As biographers, we could adopt this method by exploring the contradictory details of our subjects’ lives and times in all their messy individuality. The point is to look at differences all the way down, not to …
Biographers International Organization (BIO) invites applications for its 2026 fellowships and prizes, which support and celebrate the craft of biography at every stage—from dissertation …
Those eight biographers who met in 1986 were on the cusp of what would become an explosion of Black biographies, memoirs and autobiographies. They knew and we know that those stories were …
Our time-honored magazine, The Biographer’s Craft, features interviews with biographers and articles about biography, while The Insider brings you a monthly roundup of news, notes and events in the …