Tuesday, February 6, 2018 at 11:00 AM until Tuesday, April 17, 2018 at 1:00 PMUTC -05:00
Sarah Lawrence College1 Mead WayBronxville, NY 10708United States
It reads like a good novel – but it’s true, and grounded in fact. It must be researched as thoroughly as an academic paper – but there’s no peer review; it has to be accurate within an inch the first time out. It’s the one literary form that demands that the author surround the subject – no gaps allowed.
The biography is one of the most difficult – and rewarding – of all literary forms. And, like all literary forms, from the sonnet to the memoir, it ascribes to a formula -- not a scientific one, but a firm structure and process nonetheless. This course will embrace every facet of the form, from research techniques to organizational structure, from stylistic concerns to authorial point of view. Any and all prospective biographers, from the writer recreating the life of a relative to the writer capturing the significance of a long-lost historical figure who has captured her/his imagination, will provide a ground-floor, thorough tutorial on how to create a work of biography that will satisfy – and do justice to -- both author and subject.
New York Times bestselling author Peter Richmond has written two biographies: “Fever, The Life and Times of Miss Peggy Lee”(Henry Holt, 2008), about the late legendary jazz singer, and “Lord of the Rings” (Penguin, 2013), about the former basketball coach of the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers -- as well as four other nonfiction books, and one young-adult novel. A graduate of Yale University, where he studied under the late John Hersey, he received his Master of Arts in Teaching from Moravian College, where he currently teaches in the Education Department. Previously, he was a staff writer for GQ Magazine. He is a native of Bronxville, New York.
Registration is no longer available because the event has been cancelled.