Biographies are a critical component of our collective historical record; one consequence of allowing certain lives to be neglected is an incomplete historical record. At a critical moment for biographers to engage in a broad conversation about why certain lives have been overlooked and what can be done to remedy this, BIO has invited two world-class, Pulitzer Prize-winning historians and biographers to illuminate the subject, David W. Blight (Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom) and Annette Gordon-Reed (The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family).
James Atlas (1949 –2019), literary biographer, essayist, and editor, was throughout his distinguished career a dedicated friend to biographers and a committed champion of the genre of biography. BIO is grateful to have benefited from his collegiality, his memorable contributions to many conference panels, and his generous support of younger biographers.