Podcast #250 – “Four Paths, One Impossible Dream,” Part I

About this episode

The episode introduces a six-part miniseries following four authors on their biographical journeys.

This time, we present the first episode in a special six-part miniseries that follows four authors on their biographical path. We spent the last eight months of 2025 with comedian Sara Benincasa who is tackling Abraham Lincoln; professor Kate Culkin is publishing a book about Ralph Waldo Emerson’s daughters that nobody taught her how to promote; historian Kevin McGruder has been carrying around his subject, Harlem Renaissance writer Rudolph Fisher, for decades; and journalist Katie Rose Quandt is finishing a book proposal about five influential women while pregnant with her third child. BIO member Jenny Skoog sat down with each of these writers to ask the obvious question: who gets to write biography?

People in this episode

Host: Jenny Skoog

Guests: Sara Benincasa, Kate Culkin, Kevin McGruder, Katie Rose Quandt

Topics covered

• biography
• authors
• writing process
• personal stories
• cultural history

Keywords

• biography
• authors
• Sara Benincasa
• Kate Culkin
• Kevin McGruder
• Katie Rose Quandt

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• Podcast #255 – “Four Paths, One Impossible Dream,” Part VI: Still Writing · April 17, 2026 · 17 min
• Podcast #254 – “Four Paths, One Impossible Dream,” Part V: Community and Solitude · April 10, 2026 · 19 min
• Podcast #253 – “Four Paths, One Impossible Dream,” Part IV: Challenging the Canon · April 3, 2026 · 18 min