Writing It!
The Podcast About Academics & Writing
Displaying 1 Episode of Writing It! with the tag “self-promotion; trade press; literary agent”.
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Episode 48: Four Decades of Writing Biography
April 21st, 2025 | 47 mins 2 secs
biography; carson mccullers, editors, publicists, self-promotion; trade press; literary agent
When Mary Dearborn finished her doctorate at Columbia University she knew she wanted to write biography. She went on to a forty-plus year career in writing biographies whose subjects including Peggy Guggenheim, Norman Mailer, Henry Miller, Ernest Hemingway, Anzia Yezierska, and most recently Carson McCullers. We talk about the challenges of writing biography for trade press publications; writing the trade press book proposal; changes in the publishing industry; reaching a broader readership; struggling with self-promotion and changing social media norms; and why it’s invigorating to remember that presses actually need good writers.