The Gatekeepers

Why Roger Lewis decided to write about Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in a biography that refuses to be chronological.

This podcast is not as pretentious or self-pitying as you might suppose.

Ray Boomhower talks about what it is like to be a journalist in Vietnam and about what it is like writing biographies of journalists.

I had fun with this one. I really let it rip, if I do say so myself.

Lois Banner, biographer of Marilyn Monroe, turns to Garbo, learns Swedish, and discovers all sorts of important sources not to be found in previous biographies.

Mary Dearborn does a valiant job of dealing with my interruptions in our discussion of her splendid biography of Carson McCullers.

You might want to read Plath’s poem “Mirror” as I explain my reactions to it as a biographer.

How Rebecca Rego Barry discovered Carolyn Wells, and why she wrote a biography of a forgotten literary figure, and how she did it.

Paul Alexander talks about his new state of the art biography of Billie Holiday. I listened and I learned.

My listeners respond and I comment on their comments