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The 20 Best Biographies of Writers

The best biographies of writers cut through the gossip, the scandals, the myths, and the legends to deftly balance the life of the author with their literary legacy. This list features the best literary biographies of writers who penned classic works across more than four hundred years of literary history. From Shakespeare to Richard Wright to Mary Shelley and Virginia Woolf, these favorite biographies of writers encompass a deep bench of the best biographies of famous writers. Let’s dive in!

But first, if you’re interested in more of the best literary biographies, be sure to check out our list of the 10 best biographies of poets :

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And now for an epic list of the 20 best biographies of writers…

Agatha christie: an elusive woman by lucy worsley.

Agatha Christie, one of the “Masters of Suspense,” lived a remarkable life while penning classics like Murder on the Orient Express and And Then There Were None . Read all about it in Lucy Worsley’s Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman . Among the best literary biographies, this one dispels the mysteries in the real life of this iconic mystery writer.

How to read it: Purchase Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman on Amazon

Also a poet: frank o’hara, my father, and me by ada calhoun.

This unusual literary biography blends personal memoir with a bio of one of the greatest poets of all time, Frank O’Hara (for his collected poems, check out this edition ). In Also a Poet , Ada Calhoun discovers tapes of interviews between Peter Schjeldahl, her father, an art critic, and poet Frank O’Hara. The recordings were intended to be used in Schjeldahl’s unfinished biography of O’Hara. One of the best biographies of writers, Calhoun sets out to complete her father’s book while also intertwining memoirs of her own complicated relationship with her father. The result is a raw and real read you won’t soon forget.

How to read it: Purchase Also a Poet on Amazon

Jane austen: a life by claire tomalin.

Among readers who have favorite biographies of writers, Claire Tomalin’s Jane Austen: A Life often ranks high among the best literary biographies. We all know Jane Austen—author of, among other classics, Pride and Prejudice and Emma —right? Not so fast. Tomalin’s biography uncovers the previously limited life of this incredibly influential writer.

How to read it: Purchase Jane Austen: A Life on Amazon

Begin again: james baldwin’s america and its urgent lessons for our own by eddie s. glaude jr..

The best biographies of writers explore the legacy of the famous author whose portrait they are trying to draw. And that’s exactly what Eddie S. Glaude Jr. does in Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessonsf or Our Own . This bio of James Baldwin, perhaps most famous for his novel with queer themes, Giovanni’s Room , argues that Baldwin’s vision of America remains relevant today.

How to read it: Purchase Begin Again on Amazon

Born to be posthumous: the eccentric life and mysterious genius of edward gorey by mark dery.

I’m a huge Edward Gorey fan. I’ve read his books—some of which are collected in Amphigorey: Fifteen Books —over and over again and count him as an influence on my own writing. So imagine how delightful it was to encounter Born to Be Posthumous , Mark Dery’s compelling portrait of Gorey, definitely one of he best biographies of writers. This engrossing literary biography captures the “eccentric life and mysterious genius” of Gorey in a book that illuminates this exceptional-but-often-overlooked pioneer of the macabre.

How to read it: Purchase Born to Be Posthumous on Amazon

The bradbury chronicles: the life of ray bradbury by sam weller.

I love Ray Bradbury. During a very difficult time in my life, I sought refuge in Bradbury’s imagination, devouring two of his most treasured short story collections, The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man (get them both in this Ray Bradbury boxed collection by the Library of America). I was completely swept up in wonder and fascination. So I’m so excited to say that Sam Weller’s The Bradbury Chronicles illuminates the life of this towering figure in America’s literary history, easily one of the best biographies of famous writers. Read this book and learn about the incredible life of one of the most incredible authors ever.

How to read it: Purchase The Bradbury Chronicles on Amazon

The brontë myth by lucasta miller.

One of the best biographies of famous English writers, Lucasta Miller’s The Brontë Myth is a deep dive into the lives and literary works of the Brontë sisters, whom you may know best from Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë) and Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë). Miller’s bio unfurls the tangled reputation of these three brilliant sisters, liberating them from the various schools of thought—psychoanalytical, feminist, etc.—that have embraced the Brontës and counted them as their own. Instead, we get a fresh update on the lives of these influential sister-authors, free of the various schools of criticism that have ensnared them in their jaws. (If you’re just getting started with the Brontës, check out this handsome box set of their most well-known novels .)

How to read it: Purchase The Brontë Myth on Amazon

Cross of snow: a life of henry wadsworth longfellow by nicholas a. basbanes.

Chances are you’ve heard of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, but until now, this iconic 19th century American author has lived a life undiscovered. Read the best of Longfellow’s work before diving into this incredible look at an incredible writer. In Cross of Snow , Nicholas A. Basbanes reveals the life of Longfellow, charting his influences and the writer he influenced himself. This breakthrough study is easily one of the best literary biographies.

How to read it: Purchase Cross of Snow on Amazon

Every love story is a ghost story: a life of david foster wallace by d. t. max.

The turbulent life of David Foster Wallace, author of that infamous classic, Infinite Jest , is demystified in D. T. Max’s Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story , the must-read literary biography of this important America scribe. The best biographies of writers sort through the gossip, the speculation, and the larger-than-life reputations of their subjects, allowing the author’s life to be seen in line with their work without overtaking their literary genius. And that’s exactly what Max manages in one of the best biographies of famous writers.

How to read it: Purchase Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story on Amazon

I am alive and you are dead: a journey into the mind of philip k. dick by emmanuel carrère.

The genius of Philip K. Dick has left us with classic sci-fi works like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (inspiration for the SF film Blade Runner ) and A Scanner Darkly . But who was the man behind these important books that helped establish the science fiction genre? You’ll find the answer to that question in Emmanuel Carrère’s I Am Alive and You Are Dead , an essential literary biography for any fan of Dick’s writing. Definitely one of the best biographies of writers, I Am Alive and You Are Dead is subtitled “A journey into the mind of Philip K. Dick,” an apt description of this deep dive into the brain of this key figure in science fiction and literature in general.

How to read it: Purchase I Am Alive and You Are Dead on Amazon

T.s. eliot: an imperfect life by lyndall gordon.

I consider many of T.S. Eliot’s poems to be perfect, not to mention Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats , which was illustrated by Edward Gorey (whose bio I included above in this list of the best biographies of writers). But there’s no denying that Eliot lived a, well, complicated life that included anti-Semitism and misogyny. So how do we reconcile the poet’s work with the poet himself? You’ll find out in Lyndall Gordon’s T.S. Eliot: An Imperfect Life , among the greatest biographies of poets. Gordon takes Eliot on in this unflinching study of Eliot’s life and literature. The best literary biographies face their subject head on, revealing the “imperfect” lives of their subjects, and it’s precisely that approach that makes this book among the most essential biographies of famous English writers.

How to read it: Purchase T.S. Eliot: An Imperfect Life on Amazon

J.r.r. tolkien: a biography by humphrey carpenter.

Who was the man who wrote The Lord of the Rings , easily the most influential fantasy books ever written? You’ll find out in Humphrey Carpenter’s J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography . This one definitely ranks among the best biographies of writers because of the nimble way Carpenter weaves together the life of Tolkien with his work, offering a master class of how to write literary biographies. Uncover the man from the myth in this close read on the man who penned a fictional universe as vast and complete as our own universe.

How to read it: Purchase J.R.R. Tolkien: A Life on Amazon

Mary shelley by miranda seymour.

She wrote the groundbreaking science fiction novel Frankenstein , but who was the woman behind this classic story? In Miranda Seymour’s Mary Shelley , we discover exactly that. Among the best literary biographies, this book is a saga of the life of Mary Shelley, a life that saw as much sorrow and trauma as joy. In this book, surely one of the must-have biographies of female writers, Seymour sifts through the documents about Shelley’s life to situate famous English author within her historical and cultural context while also surveying how Shelley influenced the canon of English literature.

How to read it: Purchase Mary Shelley on Amazon

Richard wright: the life and times by hazel rowley.

Richard Wright is perhaps best known for his novel Native Son , but the author also contributed many more books and writing to American letters. In this book, Hazel Rowley digs deep into Wright’s exceptional life and magnificent literature to braid the two together. The result is one of the best biographies of writers, one that highlights the important contributions of a leading figure in American literary history.

How to read it: Purchase Richard Wright: The Life and Times on Amazon

Savage beauty: the life of edna st. vincent millay by nancy milford.

The poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay positions this influential author as one of the leading poets of twentieth century. And it’s precisely that legacy that Nancy Milford illuminates in Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay . With this fresh perspective on Millay, the midcentury master of verse, readers get one of the best biographies of poets. If all biographies of female writers were this comprehensive and inquisitive, there’d be no time to read anything else, marking this as an exceptional biography. If you’re interested in important female authors, check out this one vibrant, bold life of Millay, and you won’t be disappointed.

How to read it: Purchase Savage Beauty on Amazon

Shirley jackson: a rather haunted life by ruth franklin.

I’m a big fan of Shirley Jackson. I count We Have Always Lived in the Castle among my all-time favorite books. So it’s with great pleasure that I share that Ruth Franklin’s Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life definitely counts as one of the best biographies of writers. This literary biography goes deep into the life of Jackson, and in so doing, you’ll realize why Franklin subtitles this as “a rather haunted life.” Franklin highlights how this iconic writer danced on the edge of the macabre, radicalized the American literary world, and scandalized the public. It’s a book that’s as dishy as it is illuminating, ranking as among the best literary biographies.

How to read: Purchase Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life on Amazon

Updike by adam begley.

John Updike. Just the name of this author conjures up visions of some of the best writing in the English language, like the Rabbit tetralogy and critically acclaimed short stories . How on earth do you begin to assemble the life of this significant author? Somehow Adam Begley manages it in Updike , one of the best biographies of writers. Begley’s bio of Updike meets its match, becoming as innovative and important as its titular subject. The result is a dazzling biography whose story is just as gripping as one of Updike’s novels. You won’t want to pass this one up.

How to read it: Purchase Updike on Amazon

Virginia woolf by hermione lee.

When I was a senior in college, I did an independent study of Virginia Woolf with a great professor. To get ready for the course, I read biographies of Virginia Woolf, including Hermione Lee’s bio that I’m including in this list of the best literary biographies. Lee tackles her larger-than-life subject, Virginia Woolf, known for her Modernist novels like Mrs. Dalloway and, my personal favorite, To the Lighthouse . Lee is more than up to the task, and the result is, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer : “A biography wholly worthy of the brilliant woman it chronicles. . . . It rediscovers Virginia Woolf afresh.” If you’re at all curious about Woolf, the Modernists, the Bloomsbury Group, or the history of English literature, pick this one up.

How to read it: Purchase Virginia Woolf on Amazon

Will in the world: how shakespeare became shakespeare by stephen greenblatt.

Any list of the best biographies of famous English writers would be incomplete without a bio of the father of English literature: yep, William Shakespeare. What’s left to say about the Bard, who penned some of the most important writing in the English language ? Turns out, plenty. And that’s exactly what you’ll find in Stephen Greenblatt’s masterful biography Will in the World , which attempts to uncover Shakespeare’s origin story. Greenblatt explores Shakespeare’s early life, and the cultural, historical, and artistic forces that explain, so the subtitle says, “How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare.” The outcome is Will in the World , a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and part of the curriculum of anyone looking for the best biographies of writers. This literary biography proves it’s still possible to write fresh, surprising, captivating, and engrossing biographies of famous writers. And Will in the World is the ultimate mic-drop, making it the only Shakespeare biography you need.

How to read it: Purchase Will in the World on Amazon

Wrapped in rainbows: the life of zora neale hurston by valerie boyd.

Many people discover Harlem Renaissance author Zora Neale Hurston through her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God , but in the award-winning Wrapped in Rainbows , Valerie Boyd uncovers the writer’s total miraculous output and undeniable influence. This key book is for sure one of the best literary biographies that any student of American literature will want to check out.

How to read it: Purchase Wrapped in Rainbows on Amazon

And there you have it an essential list of the 20 best biographies of writers. which of these best literary biographies will you read first, share this:.

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Sarah S. Davis is the founder of Broke by Books, a blog about her journey as a schizoaffective disorder bipolar type writer and reader. Sarah's writing about books has appeared on Book Riot, Electric Literature, Kirkus Reviews, BookRags, PsychCentral, and more. She has a BA in English from the University of Pennsylvania, a Master of Library and Information Science from Clarion University, and an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts.

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50 Must-Read Literary Biographies

Read your way into the literary biographies of well-known -- as well as lesser-known -- writers from around the world.

Sarah Ullery

Sarah suffers from chronic sarcasm, and an unhealthy aversion to noise. She loves to read, and would like to do nothing else, but stupid real life makes her go to work. She lives in the middle of a cornfield and shares a house with two spoiled dogs and a ton of books.

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I live vicariously through the lives and stories of the writers I love and admire. Sometimes I read biographies of authors whose lives parallel aspects of my own; small lives that eventually produce great art. Lives like Jane Austen and Emily Dickinson, or Penelope Fitzgerald who didn’t write her first book until she was 58.

I like to read biographies that share a commonality with my own life, but like the best fiction, I’d rather be transported to worlds with characters that are larger than life. Lives that are tumultuous, scandal-ridden, and full of perils. Lives that are exciting and rich and full of conflict. Lives that produce stories like Native Son , The Bell Jar, Lolita , A Rage in Harlem , or Frankenstein .

I also like to read about the lives of the authors of some of my favorite books—Iris Murdoch and The Sea, The Sea , Philip K. Dick and A Scanner Darkly , Mary Shelley and Frankenstein , Penelope Fitzgerald and The Blue Flower— but this can be a perilous exercise. Some authors were pretty terrible people, which can ruin your perception of their writing. But like most of us, artists and writers lived lives rife with nuance, and through even-handed, well-researched biographies, readers can take a peek into the minds that have created some of the stories we love.

The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism by Megan Marshall

The supposed “American Brontës,” the three Peabody sisters influenced the thinking of writers like Thoreau and Hawthorne. The youngest sister, Sophia, married Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Margaret Fuller: A New American Life by Megan Marshall

After you finish the story of the Peabody sisters and are searching for more stories about American Romanticism and the role women played in the literary scene at the time, pick up Megan Marshall’s other book, about Margaret Fuller.

The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes  by Janet Malcolm

This is a biography of the biographies that have been written about Sylvia Plath. It tries to correct the myth surrounding Plath and Ted Hughes.

Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley by Charlotte Gordon

Mary Wollstonecraft died a week after giving birth to Mary Shelley, but in many ways, despite not knowing each other, their lives were very alike. A wonderful book about the mother who wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Women  and the daughter who wrote Frankenstein .

Neruda: The Poet’s Calling by Mark Eisner

A Biography of the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda:

“In this part of the story I am the one who Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you, Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood . “ —from Pablo Neruda’s “I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You”

Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight

This is the most recent biography of Frederick Douglass. It’s a wonderfully rendered story of a complex and brilliant man who greatly influenced American history.

Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father by John Matteson

I’m not a huge fan of Little Women — I find Louisa May Alcott’s life much more interesting than her writing.

Genet: A Biography of Janet Flanner by Brenda Wineapple

Genet is the pen name for Janet Flanner, a woman who fled her home in Indianapolis at 30 to live with her girlfriend in Paris in the 1920s. While in Paris, she became a correspondent for the New Yorker .

Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde by Alexis De Veaux

Audre Lorde did not live a quiet life, and this biography relishes in the myth and power of Lorde as an early black lesbian feminist.

Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov) by Stacy Schiff

What was it like to be married to the author of Lolita ? The story of Vera and Vladimir Nabokov was a love story that spanned 52 years. Stacy Schiff, if you’ve never read any of her other biographies, is a master.

Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadow: The Tragic Courtship and Marriage of Paul Laurence Dunbar and Alice Ruth Moore by Eleanor Alexander

This has all the bad: racism, sexism, abuse, sexual assault—so I warned you! It’s a hard story. I hesitate to call it a romance—maybe there was love, but the relationship between Dunbar and Moore was definitely not stable. This is a relatively short biography, but it certainly packs a punch!

The Blue Hour: A Life of Jean Rhys by Lilian Pizzichini

I’ve always been hesitant to read Jean Rhys’s most famous book,  Wide Sargasso Sea , because I’ve always loved Jane Eyre . But recently I picked up Jane Eyre for a reread and I thought, God, Rochester is an ass. Maybe it’s time for Wide Sargasso Sea .

Chester B. Himes: A Biography by Lawrence P. Jackson

Chester B. Himes is probably most famous for his crime noir series the Harlem Cycle , which starts with A Rage in Harlem . Himes was arrested for armed robbery and spent almost ten years in prison, but while in prison his articles were featured in publications like Esquire . Plagued by racism in America, Himes moved to Paris where he became famous for his Harlem series.

Mary Shelley by Miranda Seymour

Mary Shelley was the daughter of the feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, and wife to the poet Percy Shelley, who drowned when she was only 24. The idea for Frankenstein was born on a stormy night as a group of writers were telling scary stories.

James Baldwin: A Biography by David A. Leeming

David Leeming was friends with Baldwin for 25 years before writing his biography. This is a wonderful glimpse into the life of one of the preeminent voices of African American literature in the world.

Born to be Posthumous: The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey by Mark Dery

A man who created creepy comics and lived with a horde of cats and thousands of books automatically sounds sounds like the kind of person whose biography I want to read.

Becoming Modern: The Life of Mina Loy by Carolyn Burke

Both a poet and visual artist, Mina Loy moved in the most influential circles of her time. She bumped shoulders with Gertrude Stein, Man Ray, and Marcel Duchamp—to name a few.

Rebecca West: A Life by Victoria Glendinning

A great selling point for a biography is when the subject is described as a sexual rebel. I’m also a sucker for a story about a dysfunctional English family, which Rebecca West famously wrote with The Fountain Overflows .

The Brontë Myth by Lucasta Miller

Okay, I’d rather read about the Wollstonecrafts/Shelleys, or the Peabodys, because I think the Brontës are a bit overrated…but like the Plath biography, which was a biography of her biographies, this book tries to demystify the myth that surrounds the Brontës.

Anaïs Nin: A Biography by Deirdre Bair

Best known for her sexual exploits, diaries, and relationships with leading intellectuals of her time, Anaïs Nin was more than the sum total of her famous idiosyncrasies.

Simone de Beauvoir: A Biography by Deirdre Bair

A biography collected from conversations with de Beauvoir, who’s best known for her philosophical writing on existentialism and her relationship with Jean Paul Sartre.

Virginia Woolf by Hermione Lee

A well balanced biography about a woman whose life is as well known as her books; still, you’ll find some tidbits in this biography that you’ve probably never known, and might come to see Woolf in a new light—for better or worse. Hermione Lee is a master biographer.

Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector

A writer whose work has seen a resurgence in recent years—Clarice Lispector was born in post–War World I Ukraine, and emigrated to Brazil in her early years. Her writing and life is steeped in mysticism.

Jane Crow: The Life of Pauli Murray by Rosalind Rosenberg

It’s hard to find biographies about black female writers. Especially writers from the 20th and 19th centuries. Jane Crow was a lawyer, writer, and civil rights crusader. She’s an example of a woman we should know more about.

Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor by Brad Gooch

I wish there were more biographies about Flannery O’Connor, the master of the short story. This is a good biography, but I want more.

How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at An Answer by Sarah Bakewell

Four hundred years ago Montaigne wrote The Essays , where he tried to answer the universal question: How to live? This biography explores his questions and answers in a historical context.

Ralph Ellison: A Biography by Arnold Rampersand

A wonderfully in-depth story of Ralph Ellison’s life. He was born in 1913 in the south and moved to New York City in 1936. He had a grandiose personality that was sometimes at odds with other writers and politically active intellectuals of his time.

A Life of Langston Hughes: Volume I: 1902–1941, I, Too, Sing America by Arnold Rampersad

Langston Hughes’s life is told in three volumes. The first relates Hughes’s early years as he traveled the world.

Edith Wharton by Hermione Lee

I own this book. It’s HUGE. I bought it after reading Edna St. Vincent Millay’s biography in which it is mentioned that Edith Wharton was in Paris at the same time as Millay. But while Millay struggled at times with finances, Wharton was born to privilege.

Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston by Valerie Boyd

In high school we had to choose a book from a list of 100 American classics to read every month. Their Eyes Were Watching God was the best book I read from that list. Zora Neale Hurston’s life was fascinating.

I Am Alive and You Are Dead: A Journey into the Mind of Philip K. Dick by Emmanuel Carrère

A Scanner Darkly is a favorite book. A life as strange as the stories he wrote: “ It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane .”

Richard Wright: The Life and Times by Hazel Rowley

This powerful story about the author of Native Son weaves Wright’s own writing and quotations into the biography.

The Life of Emily Dickinson by Richard B. Sewall

There are a lot of biographies of Emily Dickinson, but this is my choice.

Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life by Hermione Lee

Penelope Fitzgerald was nearly 60 before publishing her first book, which makes me love her. She’s best known for writing The Blue Flower , The Bookshop , and Offshore .

Katherine Anne Porter: The Life of an Artist by Darlene Harbour Unrue

“Pale Horse, Pale Rider” is one of my favorite short stories. A woman is in bed with a fever during the influenza epidemic, and in her fever she remembers her childhood, and worries about her fiancé who is a soldier fighting in the first world war. The author, Katherine Anne Porter, lived a life that was no less compelling.

Zelda by Nancy Milford

A woman driven mad by her husband’s lecherous appropriation of her personality and writing. Confession: I’m not a huge fan of F. Scott Fitzgerald, so it doesn’t pain me to discover he was a jerk.

Iris Murdoch: A Life by Peter J. Conradi

The Sea, The Sea is one of my favorite books. Charles Arrowby is absurd, frustrating, and totally realized as a man coming to the end of his life, but fighting like hell to delay the breakdown into old age. Iris Murdoch at first imagined herself to be the next George Eliot, but ended up embracing Dostoevsky’s influence.

Poet of the Appetites: The Lives and Loves of M.F.K. Fisher by Joan Reardon

Fisher wrote extensively about her own life in memoirs like The Gastronomical Me and  How to Cook a Wolf , in which she writes about food and its relationship with life and love.

Alice Walker: A Life by Evelyn C. White

Alice Walker was the first black woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Color Purple . This might be the only biography on the list whose subject is still alive, which brings a new dynamic to the biography.

Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin

Your life can’t be all rainbows and unicorns if you’re writing stories like The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle .  This is a biography about the woman, the books, and the times in which they existed.

The Banished Immortal: A Life of Li Bai by Ha Jin

Li Bai was a Chinese poet who lived a long, long time ago, but whose work and legacy is still greatly revered today in China.

Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford

My favorite literary biography. Edna St. Vincent Millay was fashioned as a modern Sappho, and a holdover of Victorian era poets like Elizabeth Barrett Browning. But despite her writing style, her personal life was very modern.

Gellhorn: A Twentieth-Century Life by Caroline Moorehead

The life of the illustrious war correspondent Martha Gellhorn who reported from the frontlines of most of the biggest wars of the 20th century. A fascinating figure.

Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry by Imani Perry

Best known for her play  A Raisin in the Sun , Lorraine Hansberry counted James Baldwin and Nina Simone as friends. She was a prominent voice in the civil rights movement, she joined one of the first lesbian organizations, and challenged JFK to take a wider stance on civil rights. Why don’t we hear more about Lorraine Hansberry more? She died at 34.

Borges: A Life by Edwin Williamson

To read his books and short stories, it would be easy to imagine that Borges’s life could be stranger than fiction. But this biography focuses on the human side of Borges and brings new light to his work and thinking.

Ida: A Sword Among Lions by Paula Giddings

Ida B. Wells was an African American reporter who investigated and fought to end lynching in the south. This is the story of a brilliant and fearless reporter, and an indictment against the United States.

Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser

I’ve never read Little House on the Prairie . I prefer reading about the rocky life story of the author behind the books.

The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou by Maya Angelou

Yes, an autobiography. I included it because I don’t think anyone should try to retell Maya Angelou’s story. Her telling, and poetry, should be the last word.

The Invention of Angela Carter: A Biography by Edmund Gordon

A biography about the author of the morbid and gothic fairytales like The Bloody Chamber and gothic novels like The Magic Toyshop .

My Soul Looks Back by Jessica B. Harris

Jessica B. Harris writes about her early life in New York City when she moved in social circles that included James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and Maya Angelou. A vibrant city, full of vibrant people.

Harriet Jacobs: A Life by Jean Fagan Yellin

Harriet Jacobs wrote the memoir Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl , which became the most well-read slave narrative written by a woman. Jean Fagan Yellin expands on Harriet Jacobs life, and the world into which she escaped.

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The 30 best biographies to add to your reading list

Some stories involve incredible, larger-than-life characters. these are the best biographies ever written..

Writing a great biography is no easy task. The author is charged with capturing some of the most iconic and influential people on the planet, folks that often have larger than life personas. To capture that in words is a genuine challenge that the best biographers relish.

The very best biographies don't just hold a mirror up to these remarkable characters. Instead, they show us a different side of them, or just how a certain approach of philosophy fueled their game-changing ways. Biographies inform, for certain, but they entertain and inspire to no end as well.

Below, we gathered a comprehensive list of the best biographies ever written. Some of these biographies were selected because of the subject matter and others were chosen because of the biographer. It’s often said that reading biographies is the best way to gain new knowledge, so we suggest you start with these great selections. If you love history, you’ll certainly want to include these best history books to your home library.

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert Caro

The former parks commissioner of New York, Robert Moses was a man who got power, loved power, and was transformed by power. This 1,000-plus page biography could be the definitive study of power and legacy. It’s a great learning tool of mostly what not to be and who not to become.

Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi

Totto-Chan is a special figure in modern Japanese culture and is on the same celebrity status level as Oprah is to us here in the United States. The book describes the childhood in pre-World War II Japan of a misunderstood girl who suffered from attention disorders and excessive energy and who later was mentored by a very special school principal who truly understood her. The book has sold more than 5 million copies in Japan.

Eisenhower in War and Peace by Jean Edward Smith

The man who was responsible for winning World War II, twice prevented the use of nuclear weapons, and attempted to keep our soldiers out of Vietnam, all while making it look easy, is none other than Dwight D. Eisenhower. This biography is a history lesson as well as an opportunity to get inside the mind of a brilliant man.

Edison: A Biography by Matthew Josephson

This particular biography dates back more than 50 years, which means it was written without the worry of being politically correct or controversial, but instead focused on providing a conclusive picture of the man. Modern enough to be historically accurate, this biography details a lot of the little-known facts about Mr. Edison in addition to his accomplishments, as well as his failures.

Empire State of Mind: How Jay-Z Went from Street Corner to Corner Office by Zach O’Malley Greenburg

Empire State of Mind is both an unofficial biography of the rap mogul Jay-Z as well as a business book. It shows how the rapper hustled his way to the top of the music industry to become one of the most powerful and influential people in music.

Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman by Jon Krakauer

The story of the professional football player who gave up a $3 million NFL contract to join the Army Rangers after 9/11, only to die under suspicious circumstances in the hills of Afghanistan, is a book about everything that is right and wrong with the U.S. military. Pat Tillman wasn’t perfect, but he was a man we could all learn something from. His incredible story is one of bravery and selflessness -- and will forever be tied to the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Titan: The Life of John. D. Rockefeller Sr. by Ron Chernow

Ron Chernow has written some of the best biographies of our time. In this 832-page biography of John. D. Rockefeller, he shares the main lessons you would take away from someone like Rockefeller, a strangely stoic, incredibly resilient, and -- despite his reputation as a robber baron -- humble and compassionate man. Most successful people get worse as they age, but Rockefeller instead became more open-minded and more generous. The biography also details his wrongdoings and permits you the opportunity to make your own judgment on Rockefeller’s character.

Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow

Another example of Chernow’s brilliance in biographical writing is given in his biography of George Washington. Today, we study Washington not only for his against-the-odds military victory over a superior British Army but also for his strategic vision, which is partially responsible for many of the most enduring American institutions and practices. It’s another long read of the type Chernow is famous for, but it's also a page-turner. Although it’s intimidating to look at, the reading time goes by quickly.

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

Walter Isaacson has written some of the greatest biographies in contemporary literature. Our modern-day genius, Steve Jobs, will forever be remembered as the mastermind who brought us Apple. This biography shows Jobs at his best, which includes illustrations of his determination and creativity but also details the worst of him, including his tyrannical and vicious ways of running a business (and his family). From this book, you will learn to appreciate the man for the genius that he was, but it will most likely not inspire you to follow in his path.

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford

Most depictions show the Mongols as bloodthirsty pillagers, but in this biography, we are also shown how they introduced many progressive advances to their conquered nations. You will learn how Genghis Khan abolished torture, permitted universal religious freedom, and destroyed existing feudal systems.

Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time by Joseph Frank

his five-volume retelling of the life and times of Russian literary giant Fyodor Dostoevsky is considered the best biography available on the subject. The mammoth exploration sheds light on Dostoevsky's works, ideology, and historical context. For those who are not specifically interested in the famous author, the also book paints a picture of 19th-century Russia.

Leonardo da Vinci: The Marvelous Works of Nature and Man by Martin Kemp

Kemp’s account of da Vinci’s life and work is considered the go-to biography of the famous Renaissance figure. This incredible book sheds light on one of the most creative figures who ever lived, guiding readers through a fully integrated account of his scientific, artistic, and technological works, as well as the life events that helped form the man that made them.

Mercury: An Intimate Biography of Freddie Mercury by Leslie-Ann Jones

After the massive success of the movie recently released about rock legend Freddie Mercury and his band, Queen, you might be interested in learning more about the frontman. This biography draws from hundreds of interviews with key figures in his life to create a revealing glimpse into Mercury’s life.

Empire: The Life, Legend, and Madness of Howard Hughes by Donald Barlett

This is an epic biography of an epic man. It shows the heights of his incredible success as well as the depths of his inner struggles. Readers learn about the tough but eccentric figure in a story that details his incredible success as an aviator, film producer, and more.

Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges

The brilliant mathematician, cytologist, and computer pioneer Alan Turing is beautifully depicted in this biography. It covers his heroic code-breaking efforts during World War II , his computer designs and contributions to mathematical biology in the years following, and the vicious persecution that befell him in the 1950s when homosexual acts were still a crime and punishable by law.

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

Of course, we couldn’t highlight Ron Chernow’s best works without including his biography on Alexander Hamilton , which is not only the inspiration for a hit Broadway musical but also a work of creative genius itself. Another more than 800-page book (an ongoing theme for Chernow biographies), this book details every knowable moment of the youngest Founding Father’s life, from his role in the Revolutionary War and early American government to his sordid affair with Maria Reynolds. If you’ve seen the musical, this book will help answer a lot of those burning questions that you may have.

Frida: The Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera

The focal point of this biography is not the suffering that was endured by Frida Kahlo, but instead, her artistic brilliance and her immense resolve to leave her mark on the world. Herrera’s 1983 biography of one of the most recognizable names in modern art has since become the definitive account of her life.

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

Recommended reading for any adventurer or explorer -- the story of Christopher McCandless, aka Alexander Supertramp, who hitchhiked to Alaska and disappeared into the Denali wilderness in April 1992 only to have his remains discovered in his shelter five months later -- Into the Wild retraces his steps along the trek, attempting to discover what the young man was looking for on his journey. Krakauer delivers one of the best biography books in recent memory.

Prince: A Private View by Afshin Shahidi

Compiled after the superstar’s untimely death in 2016, this intimate snapshot into the life of Prince is largely visual. The author served as the musician’s private photographer from the early 2000s until his passing. You already know the expression, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” and in this case, they are worth a lot more.

Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter by Kate Clifford Larson

The “Kennedy Curse” didn’t bring forth an assassination or a mysterious plane crash for Rosemary Kennedy, although her fate might have been the worst of them all. As if her botched lobotomy that left her almost completely incapacitated weren’t enough, her parents then hid her away from society, almost never to be seen again. Penned by Kennedy scholar Kate Larson, the full truth of her post-lobotomy life is finally revealed.

Trump Revealed: The Definitive Biography of the 45th President by Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher

Love him or hate him, Donald Trump is likely the most divisive U.S. president of modern times. The comprehensive biography of Trump is reported by a team of award-winning Washington Post journalists and co-authored by investigative political reporter Michael Kranish and senior editor Marc Fisher. The book gives the reader an insight into Trump, from his upbringing in Queens to his turbulent careers in real estate and entertainment to his astonishing rise as the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination.

Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang

Most are familiar with the revolutionary Mao Zedong. This carefully curated biography by Jung Chang digs deeper into the life of the "Red Emperor." You won't find these interviews and stories about the world leader in history books alone. This extensive account of the man known simply as Mao begins with a horrific statistic: He was responsible for the deaths of more than 70 million people during his regime.

A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II by Sonia Purnell 

Biographies often give us the stories of people we know and love, but they can also reveal new stories about people that may have been lost to history. In her bestseller, Sonia Purnell tells the story of Virginia Hall, a prolific and heroic spy from World War II who took down the Axis Powers on one leg. 

Black Boy by Richard Wright

A standard biography is usually given by a historian after years and years of research and writing, but sometimes it’s better to go straight to the source. In his memoir, Richard Wright details his life as he recalls it as a black American in the 20th century. Black Boy is a harsh, painful, beautiful, and revealing read about race in the United States -- and about a towering figure of literature. 

Leonardo Da Vinci by Walter Isaacson

Isaacson represents the gold standard for contemporary biographers, and his tome on Leonardo da Vinci was a bestseller for a reason. Isaacson is able to show a detailed, intimate portrait of the most famous painter of all time from centuries away.

Shoe Dog by Phil Knight

Want to know how the biggest sports company of all time came to be? Hear it from the man himself. Phil Knight’s book takes you through how his little sneaker company in Oregon became the worldwide leader in sportswear. 

The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley

One of the most famous biographies ever, The Autobiography of Malcolm X remains a classic and an important read. Malcolm X’s politics, though controversial at the time and today, is a valuable and provocative perspective that will make you reconsider how you think about America and the American Dream. 

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

Long before becoming Jon Stewart’s successor on The Daily Show, Trevor Noah lived many, many lifetimes. Born to apartheid South Africa, Noah’s story is one of perseverance and triumph, and one that he manages to make funny by some sort of magic trick. 

The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl by Issa Rae

Of course, today, you know Issa Rae as the writer, actor, and star of HBO’s Insecure, but before her hit show came her webseries and book of the same name, The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl. Rae’s memoir wrestles with the idea of being an introvert in a world that considers Black people inherently cool.

Robin by Davie Itzkoff

One of the most beloved comedians and actors of all time, Robin Williams' passing in 2014 shook fans across generations. In his book, New York Times culture reporter Dave Itzkoff covers the life, work, and emotions of one of the most complicated and misunderstood comedians ever. Oh captain, my captain...

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Mark Stock is a writer from Portland, Oregon. He fell into wine during the Recession and has been fixated on the stuff since. He spent years making, selling, and sipping Pinot Noir in the Dundee Hills before a full return to his journalistic roots in 2016. He's helplessly tied to European soccer, casting for trout, and grunge rock. In addition to The Manual, he writes for SevenFifty Daily , Sip Northwest , The Somm Journal , The Drake , Willamette Week , Travel Oregon , and more. He has a website and occasionally even updates it: markastock.com .

Send all editorial inquiries  HERE .

Summer is the time of year that a lot of people look forward to. The days are warm and long. For outdoor activities, there's a long and never-ending list. Grilling, camping, and running outside in the sunshine are great starters. But for most, it means enjoying activities involving bodies of water. Summer means it's time for spritzes, swim trunks, and some water fights. One never grows out of such things, especially when you have top-notch equipment and it's scorching outside.

This kind of battle is fun, refreshing, and a healthy way to combat your friends. So why don't you invite your family or best buddies over (it's also a fun team-building experience, looking at your corporate world) for a water gun match this summer? Indeed, they will be eager to get on the battlefield with you. If you want to sharpen your aiming skills in time for the fight, we've compiled a list of the best water guns for men this 2023.

It's never too late to be a kid. Sure, technically it is, but that's your adult brain at work. With the right state of imagination and a few helpful tools, you can relive your youth.

A great way to do so is by way of our favorite kind of weapon: the fake one. Nerf guns have ruled the category for generations, with their signature soft ammo and inventive designs. Best, they don't hurt anybody involved in a shootout. They'll take you straight back to the playground, with the sound of an ice cream truck and the distance and laughter all around. It's a healthy kind of battle, one that involves lots of exercise and carefree joy. Best, you're also an adult, so if you feel like having a beer or staying out a little later when the battle is over, you can.

Shopping for the best gifts for men can at times seem like a daunting task, whether it be for a birthday, an anniversary, or any gift in between. So, we decided to help you out and lend you a hand and make gift-giving a little less stressful with a thoughtfully curated list of tried-and-true gifts suited for men. And at times, no matter how well or how long you have known someone, you just don't know where to look.

From small everyday carry items and others from the cool tech world to experiences that help you disconnect to reconnect, we offer you a gift guide for every guy on your list or some nice ways to treat yourself, too. Ahead, you will find a list of the best practical gifts for every type of guy. With that being said, here are the best gifts for men in 2023.

Best Biographies

Discover the lives of remarkable individuals through the best biographies, chosen from a wide array of reputable literary sources and biography enthusiasts. these compelling reads offer intimate portraits and have earned accolades across numerous literary discussions..

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Last updated: September 12, 2024

Whether you're looking for new biographies , or outstanding works written decades or even centuries ago, we have some recommendations. To help find a book about a specific person or group of people, we've set up the following lists:

The best historical biographies Some of our favourite philosophical biographies Lives of the classical composers The best literary biographies (Separately, we also have a section with interviews dedicated to specific literary figures , including, for example, an interview on Shakespeare’s life , recommended by James Shapiro of Columbia University). The lives of scientists Artists' lives

Five Biographies of Artists , recommended by Sue Prideaux

Caravaggio: a life sacred and profane by andrew graham-dixon, tove jansson: life, art, words by boel westin, young rembrandt by onno blom, surreal spaces: the life and art of leonora carrington by joanna moorhead, studio of the south: van gogh in provence by martin bailey.

From the Baroque painter who killed a man in Rome during the Counter-Reformation to the surrealist artist who left Britain and died in Mexico City in 2011, award-winning biographer Sue Prideaux talks to us about her favorite biographies of artists. Her new biography of Paul Gauguin, Wild Thing , is out today and has been longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize.

The Best Memoirs: The 2024 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist , recommended by May-lee Chai

I would meet you anywhere: a memoir by susan kiyo ito, secret harvests: a hidden story of separation and the resilience of a family farm by david mas masumoto, rotten evidence: reading and writing in an egyptian prison by ahmed naji, translated by katharine halls, how to say babylon: a memoir by safiya sinclair, story of a poem: a memoir by matthew zapruder.

It's been a "phenomenal" year for autobiographical writing, says May-lee Chai —the award-winning author and chair of the judges for this year's National Book Critics Circle prize for autobiography. Here she offers us a tour of the five memoirs that made their 2024 shortlist.

It’s been a “phenomenal” year for autobiographical writing, says May-lee Chai—the award-winning author and chair of the judges for this year’s National Book Critics Circle prize for autobiography. Here she offers us a tour of the five memoirs that made their 2024 shortlist.

The Best Biographies of 2023: The National Book Critics Circle Shortlist , recommended by Elizabeth Taylor

G-man: j. edgar hoover and the making of the american century by beverly gage, the grimkés: the legacy of slavery in an american family by kerri k. greenidge, mr. b: george balanchine’s twentieth century by jennifer homans, metaphysical animals: how four women brought philosophy back to life by clare mac cumhaill & rachael wiseman, up from the depths: herman melville, lewis mumford, and rediscovery in dark times by aaron sachs.

Talented biographers examine the interplay between individual qualities and greater social forces, explains Elizabeth Taylor —chair of the judges for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle award for biography. Here, she offers us an overview of their five-book shortlist, including a garlanded account of the life of J. Edgar Hoover and a group biography of post-war female philosophers.

Talented biographers examine the interplay between individual qualities and greater social forces, explains Elizabeth Taylor—chair of the judges for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle award for biography. Here, she offers us an overview of their five-book shortlist, including a garlanded account of the life of J. Edgar Hoover and a group biography of post-war female philosophers.

Notable Memoirs of 2023 , recommended by Cal Flyn

Stay true by hua hsu, still pictures: on photography and memory by janet malcolm, pageboy: a memoir by elliot page, the light room: on art and care by kate zambreno, o brother by john niven.

Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn selects the best recent autobiographical writing in this round-up of notable memoirs of 2023—taking in new work from such literary giants as Janet Malcolm and Annie Ernaux, the writer other writers are raving about, and a humorous debut depicting life in a haunted antiquarian bookshop.

The Best Literary Biographies , recommended by Lyndall Gordon

Selected essays by t s eliot, the ballad of dorothy wordsworth by frances wilson, reading chekhov by janet malcolm, lost in translation by eva hoffman, jane's fame by claire harman.

The inner life is a mystery but the best biographies expose the hidden kernel of a person, says literary biographer and academic, Lyndall Gordon . She picks five books that push the boundaries of the genre.

The inner life is a mystery but the best biographies expose the hidden kernel of a person, says literary biographer and academic, Lyndall Gordon. She picks five books that push the boundaries of the genre.

Award Winning Biographies of 2022 , recommended by Sophie Roell

All the frequent troubles of our days: the true story of the woman at the heart of the german resistance to hitler by rebecca donner, the last king of america: the misunderstood reign of george iii by andrew roberts, burning boy: the life and work of stephen crane by paul auster, the escape artist: the man who broke out of auschwitz to warn the world by jonathan freedland, super-infinite: the transformations of john donne by katherine rundell, chasing me to my grave: an artist's memoir of the jim crow south by winfred rembert.

In telling stories of lives that are often very different from our own and yet connected to us by our common humanity, biographies are some of the most compelling nonfiction books around. Five Books editor Sophie Roell rounds up some of the biographies that have won or been shortlisted for prizes in 2022.

The Best Memoirs: The 2022 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist , recommended by Marion Winik

A little devil in america: notes in praise of black performance by hanif abdurraqib, gay bar: why we went out by jeremy atherton lin, a farewell to gabo and mercedes: a son's memoir of gabriel garcía márquez and mercedes barcha by rodrigo garcia, a ghost in the throat by doireann ní ghríofa, concepcion: an immigrant family’s fortunes by albert samaha.

Autobiography is evolving; increasingly we find the field dominated by 'genre-fluid' books that plait memoir together with strands of cultural criticism, history, journalism or even poetry. Here, Marion Winik , the memoirist and critic, talks us through the five books that have been shortlisted in the National Book Critic's Circle autobiography category—and describes the face of memoir in 2022.

Autobiography is evolving; increasingly we find the field dominated by 'genre-fluid' books that plait memoir together with strands of cultural criticism, history, journalism or even poetry. Here, Marion Winik, the memoirist and critic, talks us through the five books that have been shortlisted in the National Book Critic's Circle autobiography category—and describes the face of memoir in 2022.

The Best Biographies: the 2021 NBCC Shortlist , recommended by Elizabeth Taylor

Stranger in the shogun's city: a japanese woman and her world by amy stanley, the price of peace: money, democracy, and the life of john maynard keynes by zachary d. carter, the dead are arising: the life of malcolm x by les payne & tamara payne, red comet: the short life and blazing art of sylvia plath by heather clark, the equivalents: a story of art, female friendship, and liberation in the 1960s by maggie doherty.

Elizabeth Taylor , the author, critic and chair of the National Book Critics' Circle biography committee, discusses their 2021 shortlist for the title of the best biography—including a revelatory new book about the life of Malcolm X, a group biography of artists in the 1960s, and a book built from a cache of letters written in Japan's shogun era.

Elizabeth Taylor, the author, critic and chair of the National Book Critics’ Circle biography committee, discusses their 2021 shortlist for the title of the best biography—including a revelatory new book about the life of Malcolm X, a group biography of artists in the 1960s, and a book built from a cache of letters written in Japan’s shogun era.

The Best of Biography: the 2020 NBCC Shortlist , recommended by Elizabeth Taylor

Gods of the upper air: how a circle of renegade anthropologists reinvented race, sex, and gender in the twentieth century by charles king, the queen: the forgotten life behind an american myth by josh levin, l.e.l.: the lost life and scandalous death of letitia elizabeth landon, the celebrated "female byron" by lucasta miller, our man: richard holbrooke and the end of the american century by george packer, a woman of no importance: the untold story of the american spy who helped win world war ii by sonia purcell.

How do you find the perfect subject for a biography? “Pick a real bitch, or real bastard, and make sure they're dead,” a famous biographer once told Elizabeth Taylor . The author, critic and chair of the National Book Critics' Circle biography committee talks us through the books that made their 2020 shortlist.

How do you find the perfect subject for a biography? “Pick a real bitch, or real bastard, and make sure they're dead,” a famous biographer once told Elizabeth Taylor. The author, critic and chair of the National Book Critics' Circle biography committee talks us through the books that made their 2020 shortlist.

The Best Fashion Biographies , recommended by Justine Picardie

The allure of chanel by paul morand, dior by dior by christian dior, shocking life by elsa schiaparelli, the unexpurgated beaton by cecil beaton (author), hugo vickers (editor), diana vreeland by eleanor dwight.

Justine Picardie , editor-in-chief of Harper's Bazaar UK and author of Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life , chooses her favourite fashion biographies, and considers whether fashion and art are inextricably linked.

Justine Picardie, editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar UK and author of Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life , chooses her favourite fashion biographies, and considers whether fashion and art are inextricably linked.

We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview.

This site has an archive of more than one thousand seven hundred interviews, or eight thousand book recommendations. We publish at least two new interviews per week.

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How to Write a Biography: A Step-by-Step Guide

By Hannah Yang

Table of Contents

What is a biography, a step-by-step guide to writing a biography, tips for how to write a great biography, conclusion on how to write a biography.

Writing a biography can be a rewarding endeavor, but it can also feel a bit daunting if you’ve never written one before.

Whether you’re capturing the life story of a famous person, a family member, or even yourself, creating a compelling biography involves a mix of thorough research, narrative skill, and a personal touch.

So, how exactly do you write a successful biography? 

In this guide, we’ll break down the essentials to help you craft a biography that’s both informative and engaging, as well as our top tips for how to make it truly shine.

A biography is a detailed account of someone’s life.

A well-written biography needs to be objective and accurate. At the same time, it needs to depict more than just the basic facts like birth, education, work, relationships, and death—it should also portray the subject’s personal experience of those events.

So, in addition to being a good researcher, a good biographer also needs to be a good storyteller. You should provide insights into the subject’s personality, motivations, and impact on the world around them.

What’s the Difference Between a Biography, a Memoir, and an Autobiography?

Understanding the distinctions between different genres of life writing is crucial for both writers and readers. Here’s a quick breakdown of the key differences between a biography and other related genres.

Biography: a detailed account of a person’s life, usually written in the third-person POV and supported by extensive research 

Autobiography: a self-written account of the author’s own life, usually written in the first person POV and following a chronological order 

Memoir: a collection of memories that an individual writes about moments or events that took place in their life, usually in the first person POV and in an introspective and personal way

Narrative nonfiction: a book that tells true stories using the techniques of fiction writing, such as character development, narrative arc, and detailed settings

Best Biography Examples to Study

The best way to learn how to write well is to read other successful books within the genre you’re writing. 

Here are five great biographies to add to your reading list. For a longer list, check out our article on the 20 best biographies to read . 

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand: the incredible true story of Louis Zamperini, an Olympian and World War II hero.

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson: a comprehensive and engaging account of the Apple co-founder’s life.

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow: the biography that inspired the hit musical, providing a deep dive into Hamilton ’ s life and legacy.

Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford: a nuanced story that uncovers the family connection between the three Millay sisters and their mother.

Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston: the story of Cudjo Lewis, one of the last-known survivors of the Atlantic slave trade.

As with writing any book, writing a biography is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s easier to think of it as a series of smaller steps than as one big challenge to tackle. 

Let’s break down the process step by step.

1. Choose Your Subject

Decide who you want to write about. It could be a well-known celebrity, a historical figure, or someone close to you.

In addition to figuring out who you’re writing about, this is also the step where you figure out why you want to write about them. Why is this a story worth telling, and what makes you interested in it? 

Maybe the subject of your biography overcame major hardships in life to achieve success, and that story will inspire others facing similar struggles. Or maybe they made a really unique contribution to the world that not enough people know about, and you want to shine a bigger spotlight on that impact.

Knowing why you’re telling this story will help you make the right decisions about how to research, outline, draft, and edit your biography.

2. Identify Your Target Audience

Understanding your target audience is a crucial step in writing a good biography. You should tailor your biography to the interests and knowledge level of your audience.

A biography for a general audience will differ from one written for experts in a particular field. For example, two biographies about Emily Dickinson would be vastly different if one is written for young children and the other is written for adult poets. 

3. Conduct Research

Dive deep into your research. Use a variety of sources to get a well-rounded view of your subject’s life. Take detailed notes and organize your findings.

Gather as much information as you can about your subject. This includes primary sources like interviews, letters, and diaries, as well as secondary sources such as books, articles, and documentaries.

Here are some primary sources to look for: 

Letters and diaries: These provide intimate insights into the subject’s thoughts, feelings, and daily life, and can often be found in family archives, libraries, and historical societies.

Birth, marriage, and death certificates: These documents can provide crucial dates and familial relationships.

Census data: Census records can provide demographic information and track changes over time.

Property records: These can reveal where the subject lived and owned property.

Employment and school records: These records offer formalized insights into the subject’s education and career.

Military records: If applicable, military records can provide information on service, ranks, and honors.

Photos and videos: Look for photographs and videos in public libraries, historical societies, online databases like the Library of Congress, and family photo albums.

Historical newspapers: Access archives of local and national newspapers for articles, interviews, and obituaries related to the subject.

Digital archives: Use online resources like ProQuest, Chronicling America, and newspaper databases available through public libraries.

You can also look for secondary sources, which provide more context and perspective, such as:

Existing biographies: Search for existing biographies and books about the subject or their era. How does your project stand out from the crowd? 

Academic articles and papers: Access journals through university libraries, which often have extensive collections of scholarly articles.

Documentaries and biographical films: You can often find these on streaming services or public television archives.

Websites and blogs: Look for reputable websites and blogs dedicated to the subject or related fields.

Social media platforms: The things people say on social media can offer insights into public perception about your subject.

Finally, you can also conduct your own interviews. Talk to the subject if they’re still alive, as well as their friends, family, and colleagues. You can ask them for personal anecdotes to add more color to your book, or more information to fill in any gaps in your knowledge. 

4. Ask Engaging Questions

Great biographers start from a place of curiosity. Before you start writing, you should know the answers to the following questions: 

What makes your subject’s story worth telling?

What was your subject’s childhood like? 

What were your subject’s early interests and hobbies?

What level of education did your subject achieve and where did they study?

What was your subject’s personality like?

What were their beliefs and values? 

How did your subject’s personality and beliefs change over time?

What were the major turning points in your subject’s life? 

How was your subject affected by the major political, cultural, and societal events that occurred throughout their life?  

What did their career path look like?

What were their major accomplishments? 

What were their major failures? 

How did they contribute to their field, their country, or their community?

Were they involved in any major controversies or scandals?

Who were the most important people in the subject’s life, such as friends, partners, or mentors?

If the subject is no longer living, how did they pass away?

What lasting impact did the subject leave behind? 

5. Create an Outline

An outline helps you structure your biography. You can write an extensive outline that includes every scene you need to write, or you can keep it simple and just make a list of high-level bullet points—whatever works best for your writing process. 

The best structure to use will depend on the shape of the story you’re trying to tell. Think about what your subject’s life looked like and what core messages you’re trying to leave the reader with.

If you want to keep things simple, you can simply go in chronological order. Tell the story from the birth of your subject to the death of your subject, or to the present day if this person is still living. 

You can also use a more thematically organized structure, similar to what you would find on a Wikipedia page. You could break your book down into sections such as major life events, personal relationships, core accomplishments, challenges, and legacy.

Or, if you want to be more creative, you can use a nonlinear story structure, jumping between recent events and older flashbacks based on which events feel thematically tied together. 

6. Write Your First Draft 

Now that you have an outline, it’s time to sit down and write your first draft.

Your opening chapters should hook the reader and give a preview of what’s to come. Highlight a compelling aspect of the subject’s life to draw readers in.

In your middle chapters, cover all the key events you need to include about your subject’s life and weave in themes and anecdotes that reveal their personality and impact.

In your final chapters, wrap up your biography by summarizing the subject’s legacy and reflecting on their overall significance. This provides closure and leaves the reader with a lasting impression.

Remember that it’s okay if your first draft isn’t perfect. Your goal is simply to get words down on the page so you have something to edit. 

7. Make Developmental Revisions

Now that you’re done with your first draft, it’s time to make big-picture revisions.

Review your biography for coherence and organization. Does the overall structure make sense? Are there any arcs or themes that aren’t given enough attention? Are there scenes or chapters that don’t need to be included? 

8. Make Line Edits

Once you’ve completed your developmental edits, it’s time to make smaller line edits. This is your time to edit for grammar, punctuation, and style.

Make sure you keep a consistent voice throughout the book. Some biographies feel more conversational and humorous, while others are serious and sophisticated. 

To get through your editing faster, you can run your manuscript through ProWritingAid , which will automatically catch errors, point out stylistic inconsistencies, and help you rephrase confusing sentences. 

Don’t be afraid to ask others for feedback. No good book is written in a vacuum, and you can ask critique partners and beta readers to help you improve your work.

What makes a great biography stand out from the rest? Here are our best tips for how to take your manuscript to the next level.

Tip 1: Focus on Key Themes

Identify the central themes or patterns in the subject’s life—the ones that will really make readers keep thinking about your book. These could be related to the subject’s struggles, achievements, relationships, or values.

Tip 2: Balance Facts and Narrative

A good biography should read like a story, not a list of facts.

Use narrative techniques like imagery, character development, and dialogue to create a compelling and coherent story.

Tip 3: Add Your Own Perspective

Biographies need to be objective, but that doesn’t mean the author has to be entirely invisible. Including your own perspective can make the biography relatable and engaging. 

Letting your voice shine can help illustrate the subject ’ s character and bring their story to life. It will also help make your biography stand out from the crowd. 

Tip 4: Create a Timeline

Organize the key events of the subject’s life in chronological order. This will help you see the bigger picture and ensure you cover all important aspects.

Tip 5: Be Considerate

Because biographies are about real people, you should be mindful of who will be impacted by the story you’re telling, especially if your subject is still alive or still has living family members.

If the subject is still alive, ask them for permission to tell their story before you start writing. This also helps ensure that you don’t get sued. 

Writing a biography is a journey of discovery, not just about the subject, but also about the craft of storytelling.

By combining thorough research, a clear structure, and engaging narrative techniques, you can create a biography that not only informs but also inspires and captivates your readers. 

Don’t forget to run your manuscript through ProWritingAid so you can make sure your prose is as polished as possible. 

Now, pick your subject, gather your resources, and start writing—there’s a fascinating story waiting to be told.

Good luck, and happy writing!

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Hannah Yang

Hannah Yang is a speculative fiction writer who writes about all things strange and surreal. Her work has appeared in Analog Science Fiction, Apex Magazine, The Dark, and elsewhere, and two of her stories have been finalists for the Locus Award. Her favorite hobbies include watercolor painting, playing guitar, and rock climbing. You can follow her work on hannahyang.com, or subscribe to her newsletter for publication updates.

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14 Best Biography Authors To Try Today

Are you looking for a book that will leave you inspired? Take a look at these top 14 best biography authors.

It takes a special type of author to write an engaging biography about another person that is not dry and dull. Yet, biography authors often sail under the radar as their books bring to light the work and passion of their subjects. If you love reading about inspiring people, you will want to pick up a biography, but you’ll want to see that it comes from a good biographer. Over the years, several authors have made a living and won awards for their inspiring biographical accounts.

As you scour Amazon for your next inspiring read, consider making one of these top biography authors one on your list. You can read about war generals, feminist leaders, formerly enslaved people, theologians and more as you turn the pages of one of these works. Here are 14 of the best biography authors out there, along with information about the works that earned them these accolades. 

1. Martin Gilbert

2. elizabeth gaskell, 3. humphrey carpenter, 4. valerie boyd, 5. hermione lee, 6. deirdre bair, 7. hazel rowley, 8. david leeming, 9. peter conradi, 10. stacy schiff, 11. maya angelou, 12. charlotte gordon, 13. megan marshall, 14. david blight, best biography authors ranked.

Sir Martin Gilbert  was a famous historian who studied World War II in depth. His biography of Winston Churchill is a multi-volume work that he wrote after going through 15 tons of documents about the man. He is one of the leading historians of the 20th century and was the official biographer for Churchill. 

In addition to his biographical works on Churchill, Gilbert wrote extensively about the Holocaust and the Jewish experience. Gilbert was born in London, England, in 1936 to Jewish parents, which gave him a passion for the topic. During the war, he was evacuated on a boat full of children to Canada, eventually reuniting with his family and living in Wales until the end of the war. This experience during the war led Gilbert to his passion for writing about Churchill and the war in general.

• Hardcover Book
• Gilbert, Martin (Author)
• English (Publication Language)
• 1066 Pages - 09/13/1991 (Publication Date) - Henry Holt and Company (Publisher)

Elizabeth Gaskell was both a novelist and a biographer who lived in 1800s England. Her famous biography was The Life of Charlotte Brontë, in which she wrote about the moral and sophisticated aspects of the famous writer’s life. 

Gaskell was a well-bred woman who was known for her kind nature. She was mainly well-known for her ghost stories, and Charles Dickens helped her get her works published. She also claimed her writings were influenced by those of Jane Austen.

Throughout Gaskell’s body of work, the idea of Unitarianism comes through. She was also well-known for using dialect with her characters, capturing the local words of middle-class characters. If you like reading autobiography books, you might want to check out our round-up of famous memoirs .

• Gaskell, Elizabeth (Author)
• 544 Pages - 03/01/1998 (Publication Date) - Penguin Classics (Publisher)

Author of J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography, Humphrey Carpenter received unrestricted access to Tolkien’s papers while writing the book. He followed the author’s journey as he created his famous books, and the biography is quite in-depth. Tolkien’s family considers it the official biography of the writer.

Carpenter lived most of his life in Oxford, England. He was born in 1946 and died in 2005. In addition to writing, he worked as a broadcaster for BBC Radio Oxford. 

In addition to his Tolkien biography, Carpenter wrote The Inlkings: C. S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams and Their Friends, which won the 1978 Somerset Maugham Award. This book told of the connection between these three famous writers and their impact on literary history.

• Humphrey Carpenter (Author)
• 304 Pages - 09/13/1997 (Publication Date) - Harcolscifi&Fantasy (Publisher)

Valerie Boyd was the biographer of Zora Neale Hurston. She wrote Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston to chronicle the author’s life. Boyd chose Hurston because she felt a deep connection with the author and felt she deserved to have a biography written by a black woman.

The work came with many accolades because it captured the humor and individualism of Hurston. She traveled throughout the country to speak on Hurston as well.

Boyd died from cancer in 2022 at the age of 58. Her last work, Gathering Blossoms Under Fire: The Journals of Alice Walker, was published after her death.

• Used Book in Good Condition
• Valerie Boyd (Author)
• 528 Pages - 12/24/2002 (Publication Date) - Scribner (Publisher)

Hermione Lee  is a prolific biographer who wrote biographies about Virginia Woolf, Edith Wharton and Penelope Fitzgerald. One of her most recent publications Tom Stoppard: A Life won American Vogue’s “Best Books of 2021” status and Top Books of 2021 by New York Times critics.

Lee lives in England, where she served as the President of Wolfson College and Emeritus Professor of English Literature at Oxford University. When she is not writing biographies, she often writes book reviews for The Guardian and The New York Review of Books

For her work, Lee won the 2014 James Tait Black Prize for Biographies, and her book on Penelope Fitzgerald was a New York Times Best 10 Books of 2014 book award winner.

• Hermione Lee (Author)
• 944 Pages - 10/05/1999 (Publication Date) - Vintage (Publisher)

Deirdre Bair is an American author known for her biographical works. She won the National Book Award for Samuel Beckett: A Biography in 1981. She also wrote six other biographies, including the biographies of Simone de Beauvoir, Al Capone, and Saul Steinberg. 

Bair was born in 1935 in Pittsburgh and earned a degree in English from the University of Pennsylvania followed by graduate degrees at Columbia University. She worked for the New Haven Register and Newsweek before becoming a professor at her alma mater. She died at the age of 84 in 2020.

Though it did not win, her autobiographical account Parisian Lives was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 2020.

• Bair, Deirdre (Author)
• 760 Pages - 07/30/2016 (Publication Date) - Simon & Schuster (Publisher)

Though she was born in London,  Hazel Rowley  lived most of her in Australia before moving to New York She was well-known for her biographies including works on Cristina Stead, Richard Wright, and Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. Her work Tete-a-Tete is her most famous, covering the lives of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. 

In addition to being a biographer, Rowley was an essayist. She had essays and articles published in The Best Australian Essays, The Times, and other publications. Rowley died suddenly of a brain aneurysm after contracting an MRSA infection in 2011. She was 59 at the time of her death.

• Rowley, Hazel (Author)
• 646 Pages - 09/13/1995 (Publication Date) - Henry Holt & Co (Publisher)

David Lemming writes primarily on myths and mythology, but his work James Baldwin: A Biography is quite engaging and gives him a spot on this list of the best biography authors of all time. He also wrote biographies on Beauford Delaney and Stephen Spender. 

Leeming worked as a philologist and Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Connecticut. He was born in 1937 and continues to write and edit on the subject of mythology. For a period of time, he served as the Head of the English Department at Robert College in Istanbul. 

Leeming is a member of the Modern Language Association of America and is part of the Federation of University Teachers. He remains one of the leading authorities on the subject of mythology.

• Leeming, David (Author)
• 464 Pages - 02/24/2015 (Publication Date) - Arcade (Publisher)

Peter Conradi is a British author who wrote several popular biographies. His biography of Fyodor Dostoevsky and his biographies of Iris Murdoch are some of his greatest works. He also wrote A Very English Hero: The Making of Frank Thompson.

Condradi has an extensive teaching career under his belt with time spent teaching at South Bank Polytechnic, University of Colorado, Boulder, Kingston University, and Jagiellonian University in Poland. He now serves as an Emeritus Professor and freelance writer . He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

His book Iris Murdoch: A Life hit many “Best Books of the Year” lists in its year of publication. Condradi is a Buddhist and has several works on his religious beliefs in addition to his biographical works.

• Leithart, Peter J. (Author)
• 208 Pages - 09/26/2011 (Publication Date) - Thomas Nelson (Publisher)

Stacy Schiff  won the Pulitzer Prize for her biography of Vera Nabokov, and her body of work spans several excellent biographies. Cleopatra: A Life and Saint-Exupery: A Biography are two of her most famous works. 

Schiff was born in 1961 in Massachusetts. She has five biographies to her name, and she also worked as a senior editor for Simon and Schuster for many years. In addition to her books, she has several essays published in prominent magazines and newspapers.

Though she does not have a lot of books to her name yet, she has won numerous awards for them, including the George Washington Book Prize, the American Academy of Arts and Letters award, and the Lapham’s Quarterly Janus Prize.

• Schiff, Stacy (Author)
• 496 Pages - 04/04/2000 (Publication Date) - Random House Publishing Group (Publisher)

Though her work is autobiographical, it deserves a spot on this list. Maya Angelou’s The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou is the best telling of her story. It includes quite a bit of her poetry as well. 

Angelou was born in 1928 and was raised in the south. She became famous for her poetry and was part of the Harlem Writer’s Guild. Her work is heralded as a defense of the Black culture and is studied throughout the world to discuss themes of family, racism and identity.

Angelou holds the distinction of being the first Black woman to be featured on a US quarter. She died in 2014, and she won the Presidential Medal of Freedom before her death in 2010. You might be interested in exploring more autobiography books, check out our guide to the best autobiographies .

• Angelou, Maya (Author)
• 1184 Pages - 09/21/2004 (Publication Date) - Modern Library (Publisher)

Charlotte Gordon  wrote Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley. Both of these women were writers themselves, with Wollstonecraft writing A Vindication of the Rights of Women and Shelley writing Frankenstein. Gordon skillfully tells how the two women were alike in the biography, even though Wollstonecraft died just a week after giving birth to Shelley.

Gordon is a modern writer with three biographical books to her name. When she is not writing books, she reviews them for The Washington Post. She graduated from Harvard and attended Boston University for her master’s and doctoral degrees. 

Today, Gordon serves as the Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Endicott College. She has two books of poetry in addition to her three biographies.

• Gordon, Charlotte (Author)
• 672 Pages - 02/02/2016 (Publication Date) - Random House Trade Paperbacks (Publisher)

Megan Marshall wrote The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism. This work about the “American Brontës” showcased how the three Peabody sisters influenced American literature.

Marshall got her start in writing and creating book reviews for The New Republic. She won multiple awards for her first book, The Peabody Sisters, and this launched her writing career. She continues to research and write and serves as a visiting professor for many universities around the globe. She is also a member of the Society of American Historians. 

Marshall also wrote Margaret Fuller: A New American Life, which tells the tale of Fuller’s influence on Thoreau as she served as the author’s first editor. This book earned Marshall the Pulitzer Prize.

• Marshall, Megan (Author)
• 624 Pages - 05/11/2006 (Publication Date) - Mariner Books (Publisher)

David Blight  wrote one of the most recent biographies of Frederick Douglass entitled Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom. He also published A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Narratives of Emancipation, a work that combined two new slave narratives in an engaging tale of the push for freedom.

Today, Blight serves as Sterling Professor of American History at Yale University. He works on the board of several museums and historical societies and has a passion for history. 

Blight’s books have numerous awards behind them. Many focus on themes of the American Civil War, an area of history the professor is passionate about. Blight also reviews books for the New York Times and is a history consultant in the creation of many documentaries.

• Blight, David W. (Author)
• 912 Pages - 10/16/2018 (Publication Date) - Simon & Schuster (Publisher)

• Learn How to Write a Biography: A Step-by-Step Guide.
• Self Publishing Guide

Human lives are intricate tapestries woven with experiences, emotions, challenges, and triumphs. Biographies and autobiographies serve as windows into these remarkable stories, offering insight into the lives of individuals who have left their mark on history or those who wish to chronicle their own journeys. 

I n this guide, we will explore the art of writing biographies and autobiographies, delving into the nuances of both genres and providing valuable tips on how to craft compelling narratives.

Understanding Biography and Autobiography

• Biography: Exploring Lives Beyond the Surface A biography is a literary exploration that unveils the intricate layers of a person’s existence, transcending the mere listing of events. It provides a comprehensive account of an individual’s life, offering insights into their achievements, struggles, societal impact, and distinct qualities that define them. These narratives serve as windows into history, allowing readers to traverse time and understand the legacy left by remarkable individuals. Biographies are usually crafted by biographers, individuals skilled in research and storytelling. They undertake a meticulous journey of gathering information from diverse sources, such as historical records, interviews, letters, and secondary literature. The biographer’s role is to curate these fragments of information into a coherent narrative, painting a vivid portrait of the subject. This comprehensive approach lends credibility and depth to the portrayal, enriching the reader’s understanding of the subject’s contributions and character. Example:  Consider the biography of Mahatma Gandhi. A biographer compiling his life story would explore not only his role in India’s fight for independence but also his principles of nonviolence, his experiments with truth, and his impact on the world’s political landscape. By presenting a holistic view of Gandhi’s life, the biography reveals the nuances of his personality, beliefs, and the larger context in which he operated.
• Autobiography: The Intimate Dialogue of Self-Discovery An autobiography is a narrative journey undertaken by the subject themselves—a profound sharing of one’s life experiences, emotions, and reflections. This genre provides readers with an intimate insight into the subject’s psyche, allowing them to witness their life’s trajectory through personal recollections. Autobiographies carry a unique authenticity, as they are composed from the vantage point of the person who lived those moments, providing a firsthand account of their journey. Autobiographies draw from the subject’s reservoir of memories, emotions, and introspections. This self-exploration leads to a narrative that is often more than a linear chronicle; it becomes a tapestry woven with the threads of emotions, thoughts, and personal revelations. By directly communicating with the reader, the autobiographer creates a powerful connection, allowing readers to step into their shoes and experience their story from within. Example:  A notable example of an autobiography is “The Diary of a Young Girl” by Anne Frank. Written during her time in hiding during World War II, the book offers a candid portrayal of Anne’s life, fears, hopes, and dreams. Through her own words, readers gain a deep understanding of the challenges faced by Jews during the Holocaust, as well as the resilience and humanity that Anne exudes even in the face of adversity.

Writing a Biography:

Research: The Foundation of a Compelling Biography Thorough research is the cornerstone of a captivating biography. Delve into reputable sources like books, articles, interviews, and archives to gather a comprehensive view of your subject’s life. By immersing yourself in these materials, you gain insights into their experiences, motivations, and contributions. Scrutinise the historical context to understand the era’s impact on their journey. Successful research forms the bedrock of your biography, enabling you to present an accurate and nuanced portrayal that resonates with readers. It’s through meticulous research that you uncover the hidden stories and connect the dots, allowing the subject’s essence to shine through the pages.

Selecting a Focus: Defining the Narrative Scope Choosing a focal point is essential for a well-structured biography. Decide whether to cover the subject’s entire life or concentrate on specific periods or achievements. This decision shapes the narrative’s trajectory, preventing it from becoming overwhelming or disjointed. A focused approach allows you to delve deeply into pivotal moments, providing a more profound understanding of the subject’s journey. By clarifying the scope, you enable readers to follow a coherent storyline, making it easier for them to engage with the subject’s life in a meaningful way.

Structuring the Biography: Chronology and Themes The organisation of your biography greatly impacts its readability. Structure your work into logical sections or chapters, employing either a chronological or thematic arrangement. Begin with an engaging introduction that captures readers’ attention and provides essential context. A chronological structure follows the subject’s life in sequential order, offering a clear timeline of events. Alternatively, a thematic structure groups events by themes, allowing you to explore different facets of the subject’s life. A well-structured biography guides readers smoothly through the subject’s experiences, fostering a deeper connection and understanding.

Show, Don’t Tell: Evocative Storytelling Vivid descriptions, anecdotes, and quotes breathe life into your biography. Rather than merely listing facts, employ descriptive language to recreate scenes and emotions, allowing readers to immerse themselves in the subject’s world. Use anecdotes to illustrate key moments, capturing the essence of the subject’s character and the impact of events on their journey. Integrating quotes from the subject, contemporaries, or relevant sources adds authenticity and depth. Through this technique, you transport readers into the subject’s experiences, enabling them to witness the moments that shaped their lives.

Balanced Perspective: Portraying Strengths and Flaws A balanced portrayal adds credibility and depth to your biography. While it’s tempting to focus solely on accomplishments, a well-rounded view includes the subject’s strengths and flaws. This authenticity humanises the subject, making it relatable and multidimensional. By acknowledging both successes and challenges, readers gain a more honest understanding of their journey. Balancing positives and negatives helps readers empathise with the subject, connecting them on a deeper level and offering a more genuine insight into their lives.

Engaging Emotions: Creating Emotional Resonance Emotions are a potent tool in biography writing. Delve into the subject’s feelings, struggles, and aspirations to create an emotional connection with readers. By tapping into their emotional experiences, you make the narrative relatable and engaging. Sharing personal challenges and triumphs allows readers to empathise and reflect on their own lives. This emotional resonance elevates the biography from a mere factual account to a compelling and moving story that lingers in readers’ minds, leaving a lasting impact.

Citing Sources: Ensuring Accuracy and Credibility Accurate information is vital in biography writing. Properly cite your sources to maintain credibility and integrity. Clear citations not only lend authority to your work but also provide readers with the opportunity to explore further if they desire. Accurate referencing safeguards against misinformation and ensures that your portrayal is based on reliable evidence. In addition to enhancing your credibility, thorough citations demonstrate your commitment to thorough research and ethical writing practises, contributing to the overall trustworthiness of your biography.

Complete Guide to Write a Biography. Start Writing Your Biography Now

Writing an Autobiography:

Reflecting on Significant Moments and Experiences Initiating an autobiography involves introspection into your life’s pivotal moments. Delve into memories that have influenced your journey, such as turning points, challenges, relationships, and achievements. Reflect on these experiences, dissecting their impact on your personal growth and development. By contemplating these key events, you gain insight into the narrative threads that weave your life story together. This reflective process sets the foundation for an authentic autobiography that resonates with readers on a profound level.

Developing Your Unique Voice and Tone Crafting an autobiography demands a consistent voice and tone that reflect your personality. Write in a way that feels true to you, capturing your unique perspective and emotions. Authenticity is key, as it allows readers to connect with your narrative on a personal level. Whether your tone is introspective, humorous, or contemplative, ensure it aligns with the essence of your experiences. By embracing your genuine voice, you create an autobiography that not only tells your story but also conveys the essence of who you are.

Structured Storytelling for Engagement While autobiographies can be more flexible in structure compared to biographies, organising your narrative into coherent sections or themes enhances its readability. By grouping related experiences together, you provide readers with a clearer understanding of the themes that have shaped your life. This structure helps maintain their engagement by guiding them through your journey in a logical and compelling manner. While allowing for creativity, a structured approach ensures that your autobiography remains focused and accessible.

Embracing honesty and authenticity Honesty is the bedrock of an impactful autobiography. Share not only your triumphs but also your mistakes and failures. Authenticity creates relatability, allowing readers to connect with your humanity and vulnerabilities. Your journey’s challenges and setbacks are just as integral to your story as your successes. By being candid about your experiences, you demonstrate resilience and growth, inspiring readers to reflect on their own paths. This level of authenticity fosters a deeper connection, making your autobiography a source of empathy and encouragement.

Adding Depth Through Reflection Incorporate reflection to imbue your autobiography with depth and meaning. Explore the lessons you’ve learned from your experiences and the transformations they’ve prompted. Delve into how these moments shaped your beliefs, values, and perspective on life. By offering insights gained from introspection, you provide readers with wisdom and a broader understanding of your journey. Reflection transforms your autobiography from a chronicle of events into a thoughtful exploration of personal growth and the profound impact of life’s moments.

Creating vivid details for immersion Immerse readers in your world by employing sensory details and vivid descriptions. Paint a picture with words, allowing readers to visualise the scenes and emotions you’re describing. By incorporating sensory elements like sights, sounds, smells, and feelings, you transport readers into the moments you’re recounting. This immersive experience draws them closer to your story, fostering a stronger connection. Vivid details not only make your autobiography more engaging but also enable readers to forge a deeper connection with your experiences and emotions.

In the realm of literature, biographies and autobiographies stand as powerful testaments to the diversity and richness of human existence. Whether you’re capturing the life of a historical figure or penning your own life story, the art of writing these genres involves meticulous research, introspection, and a keen understanding of human emotions. 

Through carefully chosen words and evocative storytelling, biographers and autobiographers alike can craft narratives that resonate with readers and offer a deeper understanding of the human experience. So, whether you’re writing about the extraordinary or the everyday, embrace the challenge and privilege of narrating lives through the written word.

Publish your book  with  BlueRoseONE  and become a  bestselling author . Don’t let your dream of becoming an author fade away, grab the opportunity now and publish your book – be it fiction, non fiction, poetry or more.

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How to Write a Biography

Biographies are big business. Whether in book form or Hollywood biopics, the lives of the famous and sometimes not-so-famous fascinate us.

While it’s true that most biographies are about people who are in the public eye, sometimes the subject is less well-known. Primarily, though, famous or not, the person who is written about has led an incredible life.

In this article, we will explain biography writing in detail for teachers and students so they can create their own.

While your students will most likely have a basic understanding of a biography, it’s worth taking a little time before they put pen to paper to tease out a crystal-clear definition of one.

What Is a Biography?

A biography is an account of someone’s life written by someone else . While there is a genre known as a fictional biography, for the most part, biographies are, by definition, nonfiction.

Generally speaking, biographies provide an account of the subject’s life from the earliest days of childhood to the present day or, if the subject is deceased, their death.

The job of a biography is more than just to outline the bare facts of a person’s life.

Rather than just listing the basic details of their upbringing, hobbies, education, work, relationships, and death, a well-written biography should also paint a picture of the subject’s personality and experience of life.

Full Biographies

Teaching unit.

Teach your students everything they need to know about writing an AUTOBIOGRAPHY and a BIOGRAPHY.

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Features of a Biography

Before students begin writing a biography, they’ll need to have a firm grasp of the main features of a Biography. An excellent way to determine how well they understand these essential elements is to ask them to compile a checklist like the one-blow

Their checklists should contain the items below at a minimum. Be sure to help them fill in any gaps before moving on to the writing process.

The purpose of a biography is to provide an account of someone’s life.

Biography structure.

ORIENTATION (BEGINNING) Open your biography with a strong hook to grab the reader’s attention

SEQUENCING: In most cases, biographies are written in chronological order unless you are a very competent writer consciously trying to break from this trend.

COVER: childhood, upbringing, education, influences, accomplishments, relationships, etc. – everything that helps the reader to understand the person.

CONCLUSION: Wrap your biography up with some details about what the subject is doing now if they are still alive. If they have passed away, make mention of what impact they have made and what their legacy is or will be.

BIOGRAPHY FEATURES

LANGUAGE Use descriptive and figurative language that will paint images inside your audience’s minds as they read. Use time connectives to link events.

PERSPECTIVE Biographies are written from the third person’s perspective.

DETAILS: Give specific details about people, places, events, times, dates, etc. Reflect on how events shaped the subject. You might want to include some relevant photographs with captions. A timeline may also be of use depending upon your subject and what you are trying to convey to your audience.

TENSE Written in the past tense (though ending may shift to the present/future tense)

THE PROCESS OF WRITING A BIOGRAPHY

Like any form of writing, you will find it simple if you have a plan and follow it through. These steps will ensure you cover the essential bases of writing a biography essay.

Firstly, select a subject that inspires you. Someone whose life story resonates with you and whose contribution to society intrigues you. The next step is to conduct thorough research. Engage in extensive reading, explore various sources, watch documentaries, and glean all available information to provide a comprehensive account of the person’s life.

Creating an outline is essential to organize your thoughts and information. The outline should include the person’s early life, education, career, achievements, and any other significant events or contributions. It serves as a map for the writing process, ensuring that all vital information is included.

Your biography should have an engaging introduction that captivates the reader’s attention and provides background information on the person you’re writing about. It should include a thesis statement summarising the biography’s main points.

Writing a biography in chronological order is crucial . You should begin with the person’s early life and move through their career and achievements. This approach clarifies how the person’s life unfolded and how they accomplished their goals.

A biography should be written in a narrative style , capturing the essence of the person’s life through vivid descriptions, anecdotes, and quotes. Avoid dry, factual writing and focus on creating a compelling narrative that engages the reader.

Adding personal insights and opinions can enhance the biography’s overall impact, providing a unique perspective on the person’s achievements, legacy, and impact on society.

Editing and proofreading are vital elements of the writing process. Thoroughly reviewing your biography ensures that the writing is clear, concise, and error-free. You can even request feedback from someone else to ensure that it is engaging and well-written.

Finally, including a bibliography at the end of your biography is essential. It gives credit to the sources that were used during research, such as books, articles, interviews, and websites.

Tips for Writing a Brilliant Biography

Biography writing tip #1: choose your subject wisely.

There are several points for students to reflect on when deciding on a subject for their biography. Let’s take a look at the most essential points to consider when deciding on the subject for a biography:

Interest: To produce a biography will require sustained writing from the student. That’s why students must choose their subject well. After all, a biography is an account of someone’s entire life to date. Students must ensure they choose a subject that will sustain their interest throughout the research, writing, and editing processes.

Merit: Closely related to the previous point, students must consider whether the subject merits the reader’s interest. Aside from pure labors of love, writing should be undertaken with the reader in mind. While producing a biography demands sustained writing from the author, it also demands sustained reading from the reader.

Therefore, students should ask themselves if their chosen subject has had a life worthy of the reader’s interest and the time they’d need to invest in reading their biography.

Information: Is there enough information available on the subject to fuel the writing of an entire biography? While it might be a tempting idea to write about a great-great-grandfather’s experience in the war. There would be enough interest there to sustain the author’s and the reader’s interest, but do you have enough access to information about their early childhood to do the subject justice in the form of a biography?

Biography Writing Tip #2: R esearch ! Research! Research!

While the chances are good that the student already knows quite a bit about the subject they’ve chosen. Chances are 100% that they’ll still need to undertake considerable research to write their biography.

As with many types of writing , research is an essential part of the planning process that shouldn’t be overlooked. If students wish to give as complete an account of their subject’s life as possible, they’ll need to put in the time at the research stage.

An effective way to approach the research process is to:

1. Compile a chronological timeline of the central facts, dates, and events of the subject’s life

2. Compile detailed descriptions of the following personal traits:

•      Physical looks
•      Character traits
•      Values and beliefs

3. Compile some research questions based on different topics to provide a focus for the research:

• Childhood : Where and when were they born? Who were their parents? Who were the other family members? What education did they receive?
• Obstacles: What challenges did they have to overcome? How did these challenges shape them as individuals?
• Legacy: What impact did this person have on the world and/or the people around them?
• Dialogue & Quotes: Dialogue and quotations by and about the subject are a great way to bring color and life to a biography. Students should keep an eagle eye out for the gems that hide amid their sources.

As the student gets deeper into their research, new questions will arise that can further fuel the research process and help to shape the direction the biography will ultimately go in.

Likewise, during the research, themes will often begin to suggest themselves. Exploring these themes is essential to bring depth to biography, but we’ll discuss this later in this article.

Research Skills:

Researching for biography writing is an excellent way for students to hone their research skills in general. Developing good research skills is essential for future academic success. Students will have opportunities to learn how to:

• Gather relevant information
• Evaluate different information sources
• Select suitable information
• Organize information into a text.

Students will have access to print and online information sources, and, in some cases, they may also have access to people who knew or know the subject (e.g. biography of a family member).

These days, much of the research will likely take place online. It’s crucial, therefore, to provide your students with guidance on how to use the internet safely and evaluate online sources for reliability. This is the era of ‘ fake news ’ and misinformation after all!

COMPLETE TEACHING UNIT ON INTERNET RESEARCH SKILLS USING GOOGLE SEARCH

Teach your students ESSENTIAL SKILLS OF THE INFORMATION ERA to become expert DIGITAL RESEARCHERS.

⭐How to correctly ask questions to search engines on all devices.

⭐ How to filter and refine your results to find exactly what you want every time.

⭐ Essential Research and critical thinking skills for students.

⭐ Plagiarism, Citing and acknowledging other people’s work.

⭐ How to query, synthesize and record your findings logically.

BIOGRAPHY WRITING Tip #3: Find Your Themes In Biography Writing

Though predominantly a nonfiction genre, the story still plays a significant role in good biography writing. The skills of characterization and plot structuring are transferable here. And, just like in fiction, exploring themes in a biographical work helps connect the personal to the universal. Of course, these shouldn’t be forced; this will make the work seem contrived, and the reader may lose faith in the truthfulness of the account. A biographer needs to gain and maintain the trust of the reader.

Fortunately, themes shouldn’t need to be forced. A life well-lived is full of meaning, and the themes the student writer is looking for will emerge effortlessly from the actions and events of the subject’s life. It’s just a case of learning how to spot them.

One way to identify the themes in a life is to look for recurring events or situations in a person’s life. These should be apparent from the research completed previously. The students should seek to identify these patterns that emerge in the subject’s life. For example, perhaps they’ve had to overcome various obstacles throughout different periods of their life. In that case, the theme of overcoming adversity is present and has been identified.

Usually, a biography has several themes running throughout, so be sure your students work to identify more than one theme in their subject’s life.

BIOGRAPHY WRITING Tip: #4 Put Something of Yourself into the Writing

While the defining feature of a biography is that it gives an account of a person’s life, students must understand that this is not all a biography does. Relating the facts and details of a subject’s life is not enough. The student biographer should not be afraid to share their thoughts and feelings with the reader throughout their account of their subject’s life.

The student can weave some of their personality into the fabric of the text by providing commentary and opinion as they relate the events of the person’s life and the wider social context at the time. Unlike the detached and objective approach we’d expect to find in a history textbook, in a biography, student-writers should communicate their enthusiasm for their subject in their writing.

This makes for a more intimate experience for the reader, as they get a sense of getting to know the author and the subject they are writing about.

Biography Examples For Students

• Year 5 Example
• Year 7 Example
• Year 9 Example

“The Rock ‘n’ Roll King: Elvis Presley”

Elvis Aaron Presley, born on January 8, 1935, was an amazing singer and actor known as the “King of Rock ‘n’ Roll.” Even though he’s been dead for nearly 50 years, I can’t help but be fascinated by his incredible life!

Elvis grew up in Tupelo, Mississippi, in a tiny house with his parents and twin brother. His family didn’t have much money, but they shared a love for music. Little did they know Elvis would become a music legend!

When he was only 11 years old, Elvis got his first guitar. He taught himself to play and loved singing gospel songs. As he got older, he started combining different music styles like country, blues, and gospel to create a whole new sound – that’s Rock ‘n’ Roll!

In 1954, at the age of 19, Elvis recorded his first song, “That’s All Right.” People couldn’t believe how unique and exciting his music was. His famous hip-swinging dance moves also made him a sensation!

Elvis didn’t just rock the music scene; he also starred in movies like “Love Me Tender” and “Jailhouse Rock.” But fame came with challenges. Despite facing ups and downs, Elvis kept spreading happiness through his music.

Tragically, Elvis passed away in 1977, but his music and charisma live on. Even today, people worldwide still enjoy his songs like “Hound Dog” and “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” Elvis Presley’s legacy as the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll will live forever.

Long Live the King: I wish I’d seen him.

Elvis Presley, the Rock ‘n’ Roll legend born on January 8, 1935, is a captivating figure that even a modern-day teen like me can’t help but admire. As I delve into his life, I wish I could have experienced the magic of his live performances.

Growing up in Tupelo, Mississippi, Elvis faced challenges but found solace in music. At 11, he got his first guitar, a symbol of his journey into the world of sound. His fusion of gospel, country, and blues into Rock ‘n’ Roll became a cultural phenomenon.

The thought of being in the audience during his early performances, especially when he recorded “That’s All Right” at 19, sends shivers down my spine. Imagining the crowd’s uproar and feeling the revolutionary energy of that moment is a dream I wish I could have lived.

Elvis wasn’t just a musical prodigy; he was a dynamic performer. His dance moves, the embodiment of rebellion, and his roles in films like “Love Me Tender” and “Jailhouse Rock” made him a true icon.

After watching him on YouTube, I can’t help but feel a little sad that I’ll never witness the King’s live performances. The idea of swaying to “Hound Dog” or being enchanted by “Can’t Help Falling in Love” in person is a missed opportunity. Elvis may have left us in 1977, but he was the king of rock n’ roll. Long live the King!

Elvis Presley: A Teen’s Take on the Rock ‘n’ Roll Icon”

Elvis Presley, born January 8, 1935, was a revolutionary force in the music world, earning his title as the “King of Rock ‘n’ Roll.” Exploring his life, even as a 16-year-old today, I’m captivated by the impact he made.

Hailing from Tupelo, Mississippi, Elvis grew up in humble beginnings, surrounded by the love of his parents and twin brother. It’s inspiring to think that, despite financial challenges, this young man would redefine the music scene.

At 11, Elvis got his first guitar, sparking a self-taught journey into music. His early gospel influences evolved into a unique fusion of country, blues, and gospel, creating the electrifying genre of Rock ‘n’ Roll. In 1954, at only 19, he recorded “That’s All Right,” marking the birth of a musical legend.

Elvis wasn’t just a musical innovator; he was a cultural phenomenon. His rebellious dance moves and magnetic stage presence challenged the norms. He transitioned seamlessly into acting, starring in iconic films like “Love Me Tender” and “Jailhouse Rock.”

However, fame came at a cost, and Elvis faced personal struggles. Despite the challenges, his music continued to resonate. Even now, classics like “Hound Dog” and “Can’t Help Falling in Love” transcend generations.

Elvis Presley’s impact on music and culture is undeniable. He was known for his unique voice, charismatic persona, and electrifying performances. He sold over one billion records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling solo artists in history. He received numerous awards throughout his career, including three Grammy Awards and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Elvis’s influence can still be seen in today’s music. Many contemporary artists, such as Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga, and Justin Timberlake, have cited Elvis as an inspiration. His music continues to be featured in movies, TV shows, and commercials.

Elvis left us in 1977, but his legacy lives on. I appreciate his breaking barriers and fearlessly embracing his artistic vision. Elvis Presley’s impact on music and culture is timeless, a testament to the enduring power of his artistry. His music has inspired generations and will continue to do so for many years to come.

Teaching Resources

Use our resources and tools to improve your student’s writing skills through proven teaching strategies.

BIOGRAPHY WRITING TEACHING IDEAS AND LESSONS

We have compiled a sequence of biography-related lessons or teaching ideas that you can follow as you please. They are straightforward enough for most students to follow without further instruction.

BIOGRAPHY LESSON IDEA # 1:

This session aims to give students a broader understanding of what makes a good biography.

Once your students have compiled a comprehensive checklist of the main features of a biography, allow them to use it to assess some biographies from your school library or on the internet using the feature checklist.

When students have assessed a selection of biographies, take some time as a class to discuss them. You can base the discussion around the following prompts:

• Which biographies covered all the criteria from their checklist?
• Which biographies didn’t?
• Which biography was the most readable in terms of structure?
• Which biography do you think was the least well-structured? How would you improve this?

Looking at how other writers have interpreted the form will help students internalize the necessary criteria before attempting to produce a biography. Once students have a clear understanding of the main features of the biography, they’re ready to begin work on writing a biography.

When the time does come to put pen to paper, be sure they’re armed with the following top tips to help ensure they’re as well prepared as possible.

BIOGRAPHY LESSON IDEA # 2:

This session aims to guide students through the process of selecting the perfect biography subject.

Instruct students to draw up a shortlist of three potential subjects for the biography they’ll write.

Using the three criteria mentioned in the writing guide (Interest, Merit, and Information), students award each potential subject a mark out of 5 for each of the criteria. In this manner, students can select the most suitable subject for their biography.

BIOGRAPHY LESSON IDEA # 3:

This session aims to get students into the researching phase, then prioritise and organise events chronologically.

Students begin by making a timeline of their subject’s life, starting with their birth and ending with their death or the present day. If the student has yet to make a final decision on the subject of their biography, a family member will often serve well for this exercise as a practice exercise.

Students should research and gather the key events of the person’s life, covering each period of their life from when they were a baby, through childhood and adolescence, right up to adulthood and old age. They should then organize these onto a timeline. Students can include photographs with captions if they have them.

They can present these to the class when they have finished their timelines.

BIOGRAPHY LESSON IDEA # 4:

Instruct students to look over their timeline, notes, and other research. Challenge them to identify three patterns that repeat throughout the subject’s life and sort all the related events and incidents into specific categories.

Students should then label each category with a single word. This is the thematic concept or the broad general underlying idea. After that, students should write a sentence or two expressing what the subject’s life ‘says’ about that concept.

This is known as the thematic statement . With the thematic concepts and thematic statements identified, the student now has some substantial ideas to explore that will help bring more profound meaning and wider resonance to their biography.

BIOGRAPHY LESSON IDEA # 5:

Instruct students to write a short objective account of an event in their own life. They can write about anyone from their past. It needn’t be more than a couple of paragraphs, but the writing should be strictly factual, focusing only on the objective details of what happened.

Once they have completed this, it’s time to rewrite the paragraph, but they should include some opinion and personal commentary this time.

The student here aims to inject some color and personality into their writing, to transform a detached, factual account into a warm, engaging story.

A COMPLETE UNIT ON TEACHING BIOGRAPHIES

Teach your students to write AMAZING BIOGRAPHIES & AUTOBIOGRAPHIES using proven RESEARCH SKILLS and WRITING STRATEGIES .

• Understand the purpose of both forms of biography.
• Explore the language and perspective of both.
• Prompts and Challenges to engage students in writing a biography.
• Dedicated lessons for both forms of biography.
• Biographical Projects can expand students’ understanding of reading and writing a biography.
• A COMPLETE 82-PAGE UNIT – NO PREPARATION REQUIRED.

FREE Biography Writing Graphic Organizer

Use this valuable tool in the research and writing phases to keep your students on track and engaged.

WRITING CHECKLIST & RUBRIC BUNDLE

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To Conclude

By this stage, your students should have an excellent technical overview of a biography’s essential elements.

They should be able to choose their subject in light of how interesting and worthy they are, as well as give consideration to the availability of information out there. They should be able to research effectively and identify emerging themes in their research notes. And finally, they should be able to bring some of their personality and uniqueness into their retelling of the life of another.

Remember that writing a biography is not only a great way to develop a student’s writing skills; it can be used in almost all curriculum areas. For example, to find out more about a historical figure in History, to investigate scientific contributions to Science, or to celebrate a hero from everyday life.

Biography is an excellent genre for students to develop their writing skills and to find inspiration in the lives of others in the world around them.

HOW TO WRITE A BIOGRAPHY TUTORIAL VIDEO

OTHER GREAT ARTICLES RELATED TO BIOGRAPHY WRITING

How to write an Autobiography

How to Write a Historical Recount Text

15 Awesome Recount & Personal Narrative Topics

Personal Narrative Writing Guide

Explore our Teaching Unit on BIOGRAPHY WRITING

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How to Write a Biography

Last Updated: May 28, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Stephanie Wong Ken, MFA . Stephanie Wong Ken is a writer based in Canada. Stephanie's writing has appeared in Joyland, Catapult, Pithead Chapel, Cosmonaut's Avenue, and other publications. She holds an MFA in Fiction and Creative Writing from Portland State University. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 1,880,916 times.

Writing a biography can be a fun challenge, where you are sharing the story of someone’s life with readers. You may need to write a biography for a class or decide to write one as a personal project. Once you have identified the subject of the biography, do your research so you know as much about them as possible. Then, dive into the writing of the biography and revising it until it is at its finest.

Researching Your Subject

• If the subject does not give you permission to write the biography, you may want to choose a different subject. If you decide to publish the biography without the subject’s permission, you may be susceptible to legal action by the subject.
• If the subject is no longer alive, you obviously do not need to ask permission to write about them.

• You may create research questions to help focus your research of the subject, such as, What do I find interesting about the subject? Why is this subject important to readers? What can I say that is new about the subject? What would I like to learn more about?

• For in person interviews, record them with a tape recorder or a voice recorder on your computer or phone.
• You may need to interview the subject and others several times to get the material you need.

• You may also want to visit areas where the subject made a major decision or breakthrough in their life. Being physically in the area can give you a sense of how the subject might have felt and help you write their experiences more effectively.

• When researching the time period ask yourself: What were the social norms of that time? What was going on economically and politically? How did the social and political climate affect the subject?

• You may also include historical events or moments that affected the subject on the timeline. For example, maybe there was a conflict or civil war that happened during the person’s life that affected their life.

Writing the Biography

• You may end up focusing on particular areas of the person’s life. If you do this, work through a particular period in the person’s life chronologically.

• For example, you may have a thesis statement about focusing on how the person impacted the civil rights movement in America in the 1970s. You can then make sure all your content relates back to this thesis.

• Flashbacks should feel as detailed and real as present day scenes. Use your research notes and interviews with the subject to get a good sense of their past for the flashbacks.
• For example, you may jump from the person’s death in the present to a flashback to their favorite childhood memory.

• For example, you may focus on the person’s accomplishments in the civil rights movement. You may write a whole section about their contributions and participation in major civil rights marches in their hometown.

• For example, you may notice that the person’s life is patterned with moments of adversity, where the person worked hard and fought against larger forces. You can then use the theme of overcoming adversity in the biography.

• For example, you may note how you see parallels in the person’s life during the civil rights movement with your own interests in social justice. You may also commend the person for their hard work and positive impact on society.

Polishing the Biography

• Revise the biography based on feedback from others. Do not be afraid to cut or edit down the biography to suit the needs of your readers.

• Having a biography riddled with spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors can turn off your readers and result in a poor grade if you are handing in the text for a class.

• If the biography is for a class, use MLA , APA , or Chicago Style citations based on the preferences of your instructor.

Biography Help

Community Q&A

• Be careful when publishing private or embarrassing information, especially if the person is not a celebrity. You may violate their "Right of Privacy" or equivalent. Thanks Helpful 31 Not Helpful 5
• Have the sources to back up your statements about the subject's life. Untruthful written statements can lead to litigation. If it is your opinion, be clear that it is such and not fact (although you can support your opinion with facts). Thanks Helpful 16 Not Helpful 15

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://grammar.yourdictionary.com/writing/how-to-write-a-biography.html
• ↑ https://au.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/how-to-write-a-bio
• ↑ https://www.writersdigest.com/writing-articles/3-tips-for-writing-successful-flashbacks
• ↑ https://www.grammarly.com/blog/how-to-write-bio/
• ↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/editing-and-proofreading/
• ↑ https://www.plagiarism.org/article/how-do-i-cite-sources

About This Article

Before you write a biography, gather as much information about the subject that you can from sources like newspaper articles, interviews, photos, existing biographies, and anything else you can find. Write the story of that person’s life, including as much supporting detail as you can, including information about the place and time where the person lived. Focus on major events and milestones in their life, including historical events, marriage, children, and events which would shape their path later in life. For tips from our reviewer on proofreading the biography and citing your sources, keep reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Writing Your Author Bio? Here Are 20 Great Examples. (Plus a Checklist!)

October 15, 2020 by Diana Urban

Writing your author bio can be a daunting task, but a well-crafted bio can help readers learn more about what makes you and your books so interesting. You should regularly maintain your bio on places like your BookBub Author Profile so fans and potential readers seeking you out can learn more about you and why they should pick up your latest book.

Stuck on what to include? While there is no one-size-fits-all formula, here are some examples of author bios we love so you can get some inspiration when crafting your own bio. We’ve also created an Author Biography Checklist with recommendations on what to include, as well as where to keep your author bio up to date online.

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Subscribe to the BookBub Partners Blog to download this checklist as a printable PDF, and keep it handy any time you want to write or update your author bio!

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1. Ramona Emerson

Ramona Emerson is a Diné writer and filmmaker originally from Tohatchi, New Mexico. She has a bachelor’s in Media Arts from the University of New Mexico and an MFA in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts. After starting in forensic videography, she embarked upon a career as a photographer, writer, and editor. She is an Emmy nominee, a Sundance Native Lab Fellow, a Time-Warner Storyteller Fellow, a Tribeca All-Access Grantee and a WGBH Producer Fellow. In 2020, Emerson was appointed to the Governor’s Council on Film and Media Industries for the State of New Mexico. She currently resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she and her husband, the producer Kelly Byars, run their production company Reel Indian Pictures. Shutter is her first novel.

Why we love it: Ramona makes a splash as a new author by detailing her extensive experience in both writing and filmmaking. Her background makes an effective setup for her debut novel about a forensic photographer.

2. Courtney Milan

Courtney Milan writes books about carriages, corsets, and smartwatches. Her books have received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly , Library Journal , and Booklist . She is a New York Times and a USA Today Bestseller. Courtney pens a weekly newsletter about tea, books, and basically anything and everything else. Sign up for it here: https://bit.ly/CourtneysTea Before she started writing romance, Courtney got a graduate degree in theoretical physical chemistry from UC Berkeley. After that, just to shake things up, she went to law school at the University of Michigan and graduated summa cum laude. Then she did a handful of clerkships. She was a law professor for a while. She now writes full-time. Courtney is represented by Kristin Nelson of the Nelson Literary Agency.

Why we love it: Courtney concisely leads with her accolades and bestseller status before diving into more personal information with a witty tone. She also includes a call-to-action for readers to sign up to Weekly Tea, one of her mailing lists.

3. Adam Silvera

Adam Silvera is the number one New York Times bestselling author of More Happy Than Not , History Is All You Left Me , They Both Die at the End , Infinity Son , Infinity Reaper , and—with Becky Albertalli— What If It’s Us . He was named a Publishers Weekly Flying Start for his debut. Adam was born and raised in the Bronx. He was a bookseller before shifting to children’s publishing and has worked at a literary development company and a creative writing website for teens and as a book reviewer of children’s and young adult novels. He is tall for no reason and lives in Los Angeles. Visit him online at www.adamsilvera.com .

Why we love it: Adam begins his bio with his bestseller accolades and a list of his popular titles. But we especially love how he also includes his previous experience in children’s literature. It’s a fantastic way an author can craft a unique and credible bio using information besides accolades or bestseller status.

4. Farrah Rochon

USA Today Bestselling author Farrah Rochon hails from a small town just west of New Orleans. She has garnered much acclaim for her Crescent City-set Holmes Brothers series and her Moments in Maplesville small town series. Farrah is a two-time finalist for the prestigious RITA Award from the Romance Writers of America and has been nominated for an RT BOOKReviews Reviewers Choice Award. In 2015, she received the Emma Award for Author of the Year. When she is not writing in her favorite coffee shop, Farrah spends most of her time reading, cooking, traveling the world, visiting Walt Disney World, and catching her favorite Broadway shows. An admitted sports fanatic, she feeds her addiction to football by watching New Orleans Saints games on Sunday afternoons. Keep in touch with Farrah via the web: Website: https://www.farrahrochon.com/ Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/farrahrochonauthor Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/FarrahRochon Instagram: https://instagram.com/farrahrochon/ Newsletter: http://bit.ly/2povjuZ Join my online Fan Club, the Rochonettes! https://www.facebook.com/groups/FarrahRochon/ Farrah’s Books In Order: The Holmes Brothers Deliver Me (Mar. 2007) Release Me (May 2008) Rescue Me (Jan. 2009) Chase Me (Jan. 2017) Trust Me (May 2017) Awaken Me (Jan. 2018) Cherish Me (Jun. 2018) Return To Me (Aug. 2019) New York Sabers Huddle With Me Tonight (Sept. 2010) I’ll Catch You (Mar. 2011) Field of Pleasure (Sept. 2011) Pleasure Rush (Mar. 2012) Bayou Dreams A Forever Kind of Love (Aug. 2012) Always and Forever (Jan. 2013) Yours Forever (Mar. 2014) Forever’s Promise (Apr. 2014) Forever With You (Feb. 2015) Stay With Me Forever (Aug. 2015) Moments in Maplesville A Perfect Holiday Fling (Nov. 2012) A Little Bit Naughty (Mar. 2013) Just A Little Taste (Jan. 2014) I Dare You! (Nov. 2014) All You Can Handle (June 2015) Any Way You Want It (Feb. 2016) Any Time You Need Me (June 2016) Standalones In Her Wildest Dreams (Jan. 2012) The Rebound Guy (July 2012) Delectable Desire (Apr. 2013) Runaway Attraction (Nov. 2013) A Mistletoe Affari (Nov. 2014) Passion’s Song (Feb. 2016) Mr. Right Next Door (Sept. 2016) Anthologies A Change of Heart (The Holiday Inn Anthology – Sept. 2008) No Ordinary Gift (Holiday Brides Anthology – Oct. 2009) Holiday Spice (Holiday Temptation Anthology – Sept. 2016) Christmas Kisses (Reissue–Contains Tuscan Nights and Second-Chance Christmas previously published by Harlequin Kimani

Why we love it: Farrah packs a lot of information into that first paragraph, elegantly describing the awards she’s received and has been nominated for. We also love how she makes it easy for readers to find her on whichever social media platform they prefer and to discover which book to start with for each series.

5. Angie Fox

New York Times bestselling author Angie Fox writes sweet, fun, action-packed mysteries. Her characters are clever and fearless, but in real life, Angie is afraid of basements, bees, and going up stairs when it is dark behind her. Let’s face it. Angie wouldn’t last five minutes in one of her books. Angie is best known for her Southern Ghost Hunter mysteries and for her Accidental Demon Slayer books. Visit her at www.angiefox.com

Why we love it: We love how Angie distinguishes herself from her characters, making herself relatable to readers. She also mentions her bestseller status and best-known works in a humble way.

6. Tiffany D. Jackson

Tiffany D. Jackson is the critically acclaimed author of Allegedly , Monday’s Not Coming , and Let Me Hear a Rhyme . A Walter Dean Myers Honor Book and Coretta Scott King–John Steptoe New Talent Award winner, she received her bachelor of arts in film from Howard University, earned her master of arts in media studies from the New School, and has over a decade in TV and film experience. The Brooklyn native still resides in the borough she loves. You can visit her at www.writeinbk.com .

Why we love it: This is an excellent example of a short, concise bio — a perfect snippet for journalists, bloggers, or event coordinators who need to grab Tiffany’s bio for their article or programming.

7. Kwame Alexander

Kwame Alexander is the New York Times Bestselling author of 32 books, including The Undefeated ; How to Read a Book ; Solo ; Swing ; Rebound , which was shortlisted for prestigious Carnegie Medal; and his Newbery medal-winning middle grade novel, The Crossover . He’s also the founding editor of Versify, an imprint that aims to Change the World One Word at a Time. Visit him at KwameAlexander.com

Why we love it: We adore how Kwame calls out his aim to “change the world one word at a time” along with a handful of his best-known books. Short and sweet!

8. Glynnis Campbell

For deals, steals, and new releases from Glynnis, click FOLLOW on this BookBub page! Glynnis Campbell is a USA Today bestselling author of over two dozen swashbuckling action-adventure historical romances, mostly set in Scotland, and a charter member of The Jewels of Historical Romance — 12 internationally beloved authors. She’s the wife of a rock star and the mother of two young adults, but she’s also been a ballerina, a typographer, a film composer, a piano player, a singer in an all-girl rock band, and a voice in those violent video games you won’t let your kids play. Doing her best writing on cruise ships, in Scottish castles, on her husband’s tour bus, and at home in her sunny southern California garden, Glynnis loves to play medieval matchmaker… transporting readers to a place where the bold heroes have endearing flaws, the women are stronger than they look, the land is lush and untamed, and chivalry is alive and well! Want a FREE BOOK? Sign up for her newsletter at https://www.glynnis.net Tag along on her latest adventures here: Website: https://www.glynnis.net Facebook: bit.ly/GCReadersClan Goodreads: bit.ly/GlynnisGoodreads Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/GlynnisCampbell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/GlynnisCampbell Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/GlynnisCampbell BOOK LIST: The Warrior Maids of Rivenloch: THE SHIPWRECK A YULETIDE KISS LADY DANGER CAPTIVE HEART KNIGHT’S PRIZE The Warrior Daughters of Rivenloch: THE STORMING A RIVENLOCH CHRISTMAS BRIDE OF FIRE BRIDE OF ICE BRIDE OF MIST The Knights of de Ware: THE HANDFASTING MY CHAMPION MY WARRIOR MY HERO Medieval Outlaws: THE REIVER DANGER’S KISS PASSION’S EXILE DESIRE’S RANSOM Scottish Lasses: THE OUTCAST MacFARLAND’S LASS MacADAM’S LASS MacKENZIE’S LASS California Legends: THE STOWAWAY NATIVE GOLD NATIVE WOLF NATIVE HAWK

Why we love it: Like other authors, Glynnis leads with her bestseller status, but not before making sure readers know to follow her on BookBub! We like how her personality shines through in her all-caps calls to action and that she includes the characteristics of her books in a fun way so readers will know what to expect from her work.

9. Laurelin Paige

Laurelin Paige is the NY Times , Wall Street Journal , and USA Today bestselling author of the Fixed Trilogy . She’s a sucker for a good romance and gets giddy anytime there’s kissing, much to the embarrassment of her three daughters. Her husband doesn’t seem to complain, however. When she isn’t reading or writing sexy stories, she’s probably singing, watching edgy black comedy on Netflix or dreaming of Michael Fassbender. She’s also a proud member of Mensa International though she doesn’t do anything with the organization except use it as material for her bio. You can connect with Laurelin on Facebook at facebook.com/LaurelinPaige or on twitter @laurelinpaige. You can also visit her website, laurelinpaige.com , to sign up for emails about new releases. Subscribers also receive a free book from a different bestselling author every month.

Why we love it: We love Laurelin’s bio because she lets her fun personality shine through! She also includes information about a monthly giveaway she runs through her mailing list, which is enticing and unique.

10. Mia Sosa

Mia Sosa is a USA Today bestselling author of contemporary romance and romantic comedies. Her books have received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly , Kirkus Reviews , Booklist , and Library Journal , and have been praised by Cosmopolitan , The Washington Post , Buzzfeed , Entertainment Weekly , and more. Book Riot included her debut, Unbuttoning the CEO , in its list of 100 Must-Read Romantic Comedies, and Booklist recently called her “the new go-to author for fans of sassy and sexy contemporary romances.” A former First Amendment and media lawyer, Mia practiced for more than a decade before trading her suits for loungewear (okay, okay, they’re sweatpants). Now she strives to write fun and flirty stories about imperfect characters finding their perfect match. Mia lives in Maryland with her husband, their two daughters, and an adorable dog that rules them all. For more information about Mia and her books, visit www.miasosa.com .

Why we love it: This is such a well-constructed bio, with a paragraph for each (1) listing accolades and praise from trade reviews, (2) including a blurb about Mia’s overall author brand, (3) describing her previous work experience and how she became an author, and (4) sharing personal information and directing readers to where they could learn more.

11. Aiden Thomas

Aiden Thomas is a trans, Latinx, New York Times Bestselling Author with an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College. Originally from Oakland, California, they now make their home in Portland, OR. Aiden is notorious for not being able to guess the endings of books and movies, and organizes their bookshelves by color. Their books include Cemetery Boys and Lost in the Never Woods .

Why we love it: A well-known advocate of diverse books, Aiden leads with their identity markers to connect right away with readers of similar identities. The rest of their concise bio fits information about their bestseller status, education, location, personality, and popular titles into just a few short sentences!

12. Wayne Stinnett

Wayne Stinnett is an American novelist and Veteran of the United States Marine Corps. Between those careers, he’s worked as a deckhand, commercial fisherman, divemaster, taxi driver, construction manager, and over the road truck driver, among many other things. He now lives on a sea island, in the South Carolina Lowcountry, with his wife and youngest daughter. They also have three grown children, five grand children, three dogs and a whole flock of parakeets. Stinnett grew up in Melbourne, Florida and has also lived in the Florida Keys, the Bahamas, and Cozumel, Mexico. His next dream is to one day visit and dive Cuba.

Why we love it: What better way to introduce an author of novels about travel, seafaring, and military adventures than to share his first-hand experiences! By weaving in relevant professional background and a glimpse of his home life by the sea, Wayne demonstrates deep knowledge of his subjects to his readers, as well as connecting with them on a personal level by describing his family and goals for the future.

13. June Hur

June Hur was born in South Korea and raised in Canada, except for the time when she moved back to Korea and attended high school there. She studied History and Literature at the University of Toronto. She began writing her debut novel after obsessing over books about Joseon Korea. When she’s not writing, she can be found wandering through nature or journaling at a coffee shop. June is the bestselling author of The Silence of Bones , The Forest of Stolen Girls , and The Red Palace , and currently lives in Toronto with her husband and daughter.

Why we love it: We love how June includes her background and what inspired her writing. Sharing a story’s origins is a wonderful way to meaningfully connect with readers.

14. Claire Delacroix

Bestselling author Claire Delacroix published her first medieval romance in 1993. Since then, she has published over seventy romance novels and numerous novellas, including time travel romances, contemporary romances and paranormal romances. The Beauty , part of her successful Bride Quest series, was her first book to land on the New York Times list of bestselling books. Claire has written under the name Claire Cross and continues to write as Deborah Cooke as well as Claire Delacroix. Claire makes her home in Canada with her family, a large undisciplined garden and a growing number of incomplete knitting projects. Sign up for Claire’s monthly medieval romance newsletter at: https://view.flodesk.com/pages/622ca9849b7136a9e313df83 Visit Claire’s website to find out more about her books at http://delacroix.net

Why we love it: While Claire has an extensive backlist, she succinctly describes her publishing success and subgenres. She also includes all of her pen names so readers can easily find her, no matter which name they’re looking for.

15. Vanessa Riley

Vanessa Riley writes Historical Fiction and Historical Romance (Georgian, Regency, & Victorian) featuring hidden histories, dazzling multi-culture communities, and strong sisterhoods. She promises to pull heart strings, offer a few laughs, and share tidbits of tantalizing history. This Southern, Irish, Trini (West Indies) girl holds a doctorate in mechanical engineering and a MS in industrial engineering and engineering management from Stanford University. She also earned a BS and MS in mechanical engineering from Penn State University. Yet, her love of history and lattes have overwhelmed her passion for math, leading to the publication of over 20+ titles. She loves writing on her southern porch with proper caffeine.

Why we love it: Vanessa launches into her bio by sharing the specific time periods she writes in, as well as the diverse characters and emotions her readers can look forward to, appealing directly to her ideal audience . She then shares a bit of personal info, leaving readers with an image of her in her element: writing on a porch while sipping tea.

16. April White

April White has been a film producer, private investigator, bouncer, teacher and screenwriter. She has climbed in the Himalayas, survived a shipwreck, and lived on a gold mine in the Yukon. She and her husband share their home in Southern California with two extraordinary boys and a lifetime collection of books. Her first novel, Marking Time , is the 2016 winner of the Library Journal Indie E-Book Award for YA Literature, and her contemporary romantic suspense, Code of Conduct , was a Next Generation Indie Award and RONE Award Finalist. All five books in the Immortal Descendants series are on the Amazon Top 100 lists in Time Travel Romance and Historical Fantasy. More information and her blog can be found at www.aprilwhitebooks.com .

Why we love it: April’s bio is short and sweet, but is packed with interesting information. She was a private investigator and survived a shipwreck? How can you not want to learn more about this author? She also elegantly includes her books’ status and subgenre in the last paragraph, along with a call-to-action for readers to learn more.

17. Julia Quinn

#1 New York Times bestselling author Julia Quinn loves to dispel the myth that smart women don’t read (or write) romance, and if you watch reruns of the game show The Weakest Link you might just catch her winning the $79,000 jackpot. She displayed a decided lack of knowledge about baseball, country music, and plush toys, but she is proud to say that she aced all things British and literary, answered all of her history and geography questions correctly, and knew that there was a Da Vinci long before there was a code. On December 25, 2020, Netflix premiered Bridgerton , based on her popular series of novels about the Bridgerton family. Find her on the web at www.juliaquinn.com .

Why we love it: Julia takes a unique approach, making her bio more voicey and focused on her interests. Yet she keeps it up to date, including her latest news in the last sentence (above the call-to-action).

18. Rick Mofina

USA Today bestselling author Rick Mofina is a former journalist who has interviewed murderers on death row, flown over L.A. with the LAPD and patrolled with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police near the Arctic. He’s also reported from the Caribbean, Africa and Kuwait’s border with Iraq. His books have been published in nearly 30 countries, including an illegal translation produced in Iran. His work has been praised by James Patterson, Dean Koontz, Michael Connelly, Lee Child, Tess Gerritsen, Jeffery Deaver, Sandra Brown, James Rollins, Brad Thor, Nick Stone, David Morrell, Allison Brennan, Heather Graham, Linwood Barclay, Peter Robinson, Håkan Nesser and Kay Hooper. The Crime Writers of Canada, The International Thriller Writers and The Private Eye Writers of America have listed his titles among the best in crime fiction. As a two-time winner of Canada’s Arthur Ellis Award, a four-time Thriller Award finalist and a two-time Shamus Award finalist, the Library Journal calls him, “One of the best thriller writers in the business.” Join Rick Mofina’s newsletter from his website and receive a free eBook! You can also find Rick Mofina’s new exclusive serialized thriller, The Dying Light , by subscribing to Radish Fiction com For more information please visit www.rickmofina.com https://www.facebook.com/rickmofina or follow Rick on Twitter @Rick Mofina

Why we love it: Including Rick’s first-hand experiences as a journalist lends him credibility in his genres of Crime Fiction and Thrillers. He also includes a list of well-known authors who have praised his work, and these endorsements may encourage those authors’ fans to give Rick a try. The free ebook offer effectively sweetens the deal!

19. J.T. Ellison

J.T. Ellison is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than 25 novels, and the EMMY® award winning co-host of the literary TV show A Word on Words . She also writes urban fantasy under the pen name Joss Walker. With millions of books in print, her work has won critical acclaim, prestigious awards, been optioned for television, and has been published in 28 countries. J.T. lives in Nashville with her husband and twin kittens, where she is hard at work on her next novel.

Why we love it: This is a great example of a concise bio suitable for use in any blog or publication. J.T. keeps to just the essential ingredients of a professional author bio: accolades, genres, experience, and a bit of what she’s up to today for a personal touch.

20. James S.A. Corey

James S.A. Corey is the pen name for a collaboration between Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. James is Daniel’s middle name, Corey is Ty’s middle name, and S.A. are Daniel’s daughter’s initials. James’ current project is a series of science fiction novels called The Expanse Series. They are also the authors of Honor Among Thieves: Star Wars (Empire and Rebellion).

Why we love it: We love co-author bios that reveal how the duo came up with their pseudonym as a fun fact for readers! We also like that the reminder of this bio simply points readers straight to their buzziest works.

Want to share this post? Here are ready-made tweets:

Click to tweet: If you’re writing your author bio, these examples are so helpful! #writetip #pubtip http://bit.ly/1OSBcDO

Click to tweet: Make sure to keep your author bio updated! Here are some great bio examples, PLUS a printable checklist of what to include and where to keep it up to date. #amwriting http://bit.ly/1OSBcDO

This post was originally published on October 15 2015 and has been updated with new examples and a PDF checklist!

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Famous Authors: The 30 Greatest Writers Of All Time

Who are the most  most famous authors the world has ever known ? Perhaps that’s not the real question: we should instead be asking, ‘how can we judge’? With that in mind one can begin to talk about criteria. One can think about which famous writers had the most influence on the world as a result of what they wrote, or how their writings changed the world.

We don’t necessarily have to talk about their writing style or how good their prose is, as that is, in any case, far too subjective: their greatness could simply be about their ideas – ideas that grab the attention of the world and change the world’s perceptions forever. In that case the writing would only be a vehicle for the transmission of the idea they wish to convey. That idea or theory or research is the reason for writing the book.

And then, particularly if we are including Shakespeare as one of the influential writers, we need to look at what kind of writing we are talking about. Shakespeare falls into the fiction writer category and so, perhaps, to find our best writers we should look at other fiction writers whose work had something like the influence of William Shakespeare’s. It should therefore be clear that our list of the thirty greatest writers are all fiction writers. Our criterion will be that they should be poets, dramatists and prose fiction writers who have had a significant influence on the writers who came after them or on the direction of society.

But who, apart from Shakespeare, are the greatest writers of all time? Without further ado, here is a list of thirty of the greatest writers of all time offered by NoSweatShakespeare. It would be impossible to rank them so they are listed in order of their birth dates:

Homer ~850 BCE

Sophocles 496-406 BCE

Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro) 70 BCE – 19 BCE

The Evangelist, Mark (Author of the Gospel of St Mark) 1st Century CE

Dante (Durante degli Alighieri) 1265-1321

Geoffrey Chaucer 1343-1400

Francois Rabelais 1498-1553

Cervantes (Miguel de Cervantes Cortinas) 1547-1616

John Donne 1572-1631

John Milton 1608-1674

John Bunyan (1628-1688)

Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet) 1694-1778

William Blake 1757-1827

Jane Austen 1775 – 1817

Hans Christian Andersen 1805-1875

Hans Christian Andersen was a Danish playwright, travel writer, poet, novelist and story writer. His fairy tales place him as one of the world’s greatest writers ever. Written basically for children they transcend age barriers because of their universal nature: they reach the deepest levels of the human condition, each story demonstrating something profound about what it means to be a human being… Read more on Hans Christian Anderson >>

Charles Dickens 1812-1870

Herman Melville 1819-1891

Gustave Flaubert 1821-1880

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky 1821-1881

Jules Verne 1828-1905

Leo Tolstoy (Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy) 1828-1910

Emily Dickinson 1830-1886

Unknown as a poet during her lifetime, Emily Dickinson is now regarded by many as one of the most powerful voices of American culture. Her poetry has inspired many other writers, including the Brontes. In 1994 the critic, Harold Bloom, listed her among the twenty-six central writers of Western civilization.  After she died her sister found the almost two thousand poems the poet had written… Read Emily Dickinson quotes . Read more on Emily Dickinson >>

Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) 1832-1898

James Joyce 1882-1941

Franz Kafka 1883-1924

T.S. Eliot 1888-1965

F scott fitzgerald 1896-1940.

Jorge Luis Borges 1899-1986

George Orwell 1903-1950

Gabriel Garcia Marques 1927-2014

Like our list of the thirty greatest writers of all time? Any we’re missing? Check out our list of famous English writers , and most famous American authors .

Fiction writers do not write to transmit an idea or report on research they have done. They use language to make us think that their inventions are real, that the places they create actually exist and that their characters are real people, like us, who love and hate and suffer and strive. They invite us to enter into the world of their text and although they usually write only to entertain, there is a sense in that they point to truths just as real as those reached by Darwin and Einstein. If they do that at the highest level, in creating a world that we both recognise and can be inspired by, they reveal themselves as great writers and influence the world in that way. Like Shakespeare.

So who are these writers who can be placed in the same category as Shakespeare for doing that? Shakespeare is, of course, foremost among the great writers. Apart from writing plays that can be held up like mirrors in which we can see ourselves as human beings clearly, and come to an understanding of many of the things that make us human, Shakespeare’s poetry has had a profound effect on the English language: the way we use it today has been shaped by his words and phrases. It can be difficult at times to utter a sentence in English without using a construction first used by Shakespeare. And whenever we need to find a phrase that will sum something we want to say up perfectly and beautifully, we will find a phrase somewhere in Shakespeare’s works .

The #2, #3 and #4 writers of all time seem to be missing from this list: #1 Shakespeare #2 Faust as translated by the great poet Walter Arndt–Part II Act V = to anything in Mr. S. and maybe exceeds. #3 Daniel Deronda by G. Eliot #4 Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon #5 Middlemarch

To include neither Proust nor Faulkner is preposterous. No reasonable critic places Orwell, Carrol, Verne or Christian-Anderson above them.

Mr Daly, Your post, at best, is an organized mess. To define in an absolute term that a “reasonable critic” should side with you, is a crash landing of opinion. Your suggestions of authors Faulkner and Proust, is purely for dramatic effect. Salinger and King are above them all.

Nice list but you forgot some titans in the art of writing:

Eiichiro Oda Gege Akutami Hiro Mashima Jeff Kinney Rick Riordan R.L. Stine (way better than King imo) JK Rowling

& of course:

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How To Write An Author’s Biography—7 Best Facets To Share With Readers

• August 9, 2022

Writing an author bio is a crucial step in your writing career. 

How your bio is written will give publishers, critics, and readers their first impression of you. 

So, how do you portray yourself well in a short bio using 100-200 words, which is the standard author bio length?

Beyond the word limit, how do you write an author bio that makes an impact? Check out the tips and advice below, followed by examples of quality author bios from which to take inspiration.

If you are at a loss about how to write an author’s biography for your originally published work, this article is for you.

How to write an author’s biography

Readers, literary agents, and publishing companies want to know who you are. Artists are also businesses unto themselves, and a great pitch is key to good business. 

Consider your author bio as your sales pitch. Why should a reader read your work ? What’s in it for literary agents and publishers?

How many words are in an author bio?

A typical author bio is only around 100 words. As a writer, you know that 100 words are very few to share your entire life experience.

The challenge in writing your own bio lies in condensing all the critical, relevant, and interesting information about yourself in such a short passage.

What to include in an author bio

With all the information about your life, which is relevant to most readers and will pique their interests?

1. Your background 

Where are you from? And where do you live now? 

Readers often naturally resonate with those from their hometown or favorite city. Your home and current city/country are one line in your bio and may be condensed to half a sentence (examples to follow).

2. Personal background

Who are you, and what made you that way? What experiences have you had that relate to your book’s theme or story?

What do you love to write about? Are you into creative writing focusing on poetry? What’s your niche, your style, your inspiration?

How about your relevant work experience? Have you worked in publishing? Have you been featured in reputable literary journals or magazines? 

Use the questions and suggestions above as a guide. You don’t have to include all this information, or you can include more. 

The critical thing to remember is to keep everything simple and concise.

Follow the basic author bio template outlined below to get started.

Start your author bio a strong opening line. This is the reader’s first point of contact with who you are, so make it relevant and memorable. 

Consider mentioning where you’re from to connect with potential locals or establish yourself as a member of a cultural scene. 

New York City and Portland, Oregon are famous scenes for writers, and mentioning that you’re from there (as long as you really are!) can improve how a potential reader views you and your work.

4. Reputation and achievements

After your introduction, show off your previous experience and success by mentioning awards you’ve won or for which you’ve been nominated and previous work published. 

Highlighting your achievements in your author bio instills confidence in the readers that your work is high quality and worth their time.

5. Why should readers consider your work?

Now that you’ve introduced yourself and highlighted your achievements, it’s time to show potential readers why you’re a credible author in your niche. How does your experience make you an authority in the subject? 

You do not need to be a published author of ten books just to be able to show your authority in the field or genre you’ve chosen.

If you write about war, were you in service? If you write about art, are you an artist or art critic? Help readers feel confident by establishing your authority in your particular field or niche through your author bio.

6. Themes, style, genre

You’ve shown the reader why you can write about the niche. Now it’s time to offer them even more information about what to expect for your work. 

Over the next line or two, outline your style and themes. 

Are you in to creative writing or are you more focused on academic writing?

Do you mostly write contemporary romance? Historical fiction? Satire? 

Readers often choose books by their genre of preference, so it’s essential to highlight your genre , themes, and style in your author bio. Doing so attracts already-interested readers, whereby your style and themes are major selling points.

7. Off-time

What do you do when you’re not writing? You’re human, so you have other qualities, hobbies, and passions beyond your career. 

Using your author bio, let readers know what your personal interests are, the activities you like to do in your spare time or causes you are passionate about. 

Relatability is vital in readers’ purchasing decisions, so get vulnerable and show a more intimate side of yourself in your bio.

The template

Here are some helpful templates to give you an idea on how to structure your author bio:

[Author] was born in [location] and now resides in [location]. Known for their works [book title] and [book title] (or) published in [journal/publication], [author] has a lot to offer fans of [genre].

Having worked as [experience], [Author] offers experience-based insight into the world of [topic/niche]. [Author] explores [themes] with style, wit, and grace.

In their spare time, [Author] likes to spend time on [hobbies].

The above is a basic author bio template but a good starting point. Use the template to write your own author bio but feel free to edit and change the structure and content as you see fit.

Author bios: First person or third person?

Authors often write their own bios but write in the third person because doing so reads well and helps you sound more reputable and established. 

If you write in the first person (using ‘I’ statements), it’s too easy to sound overconfident and conceited. 

Keeping the bio narrative in the third person makes it much easier to talk yourself up without sounding arrogant or ‘tooting your own horn.’

The importance of an author bio

Your bio serves as a type of business card. 

A bio is crucial, whether as self publishing authors or as someone who published traditionally. It informs potential readers of your background, style, and character. 

Essentially, your bio is a sales pitch, one of y our book marketing tools. It’s the ‘why’ regarding a reader’s decision to read or purchase your work. 

Your bio helps you establish and improve your reputation, by putting forward a specific perspective on who you are.

Credibility and authority

What qualifies you to write about your niche or topic? If you write a book about travel and you inform readers of your extensive traveling experience, that gives your credibility and authority on the subject.

Readers are more likely to engage with your book if you write a non-fiction book about self-care and have experience working as a therapist or counselor.

Similarly, suppose you inform readers of your past success, such as getting published in a reputable literary journal or magazines like the Wall Street Journal or USA Today. In that case, they feel more confident that your work is worth their time and money.

Relatability

Famous authors such as Stephen King or Haruki Murakami don’t need to rely on their author bio as much as lesser-known or first-time authors. 

Such authors already have an established reputation that gives readers confidence and interest. 

However, if you’re a first-time freelance writer or don’t have the level of fame as the authors mentioned, your bio is how you instill confidence in the reader.

If a reader chooses to read work by an author whom they’ve never heard of, they naturally want to know more about said author. 

In what ways can you relate to the reader? For example, if you write a psychology book about anxiety, your experiences of struggling with and overcoming fear will be incredibly relevant and relatable information for the reader.

Several factors influence a potential reader’s purchasing decision when interested in a book from an author they’ve never heard. Book marketing covers a wide range of tools and activities.

These factors are often surface level, such as the book cover , the size of the book, and how they heard about it in the first place. 

Another major factor is the author’s bio. Your bio is not the same as other ‘hard sell’ marketing tactics, but rather a soft sell, a gentle persuasion to give your work a chance.

Examples of Author Bios

If you want to write a killer bio, it’s wise to take inspiration from great author bio examples. 

Below we’ve included the author bios of renowned authors John Scalzi ( Old Man’s War ,  Redshirts) , June Hur (The Silence of Bones, The Forest of Stolen Girls), and John Grisham (The Pelican Brief).

John Scalzi

John Scalzi writes books, which makes perfect sense considering where you’re reading this. He’s best known for writing science fiction, including the New York Times bestseller Redshirts, which won the Hugo Award for Best Novel. He also writes non-fiction on subjects ranging from personal finance to astronomy to film and was the Creative Consultant for the Stargate: Universe television series. He enjoys pie, as should all right-thinking people. You can get to his blog by typing the word “Whatever” into Google. No, seriously, try it.

Scalzi’s wit shines in his opening line. Following the opener, we learn about his genre (sci-fi), previously published work, and literary achievements. 

Finally, he adds more humor to give the reader a warm, soft giggle. Scalzi’s personality shines through his bio and earns him the positive reputation he boasts today.

June Hur was born in South Korea and raised in Canada, except when she moved back to Korea and attended high school there. She studied History and Literature at the University of Toronto. She began writing her debut novel after obsessing over books about Joseon Korea. She can be found wandering through nature or journaling at a coffee shop when she’s not writing. June is the Author of The Silence of Bones and The Forest of Stolen Girls and currently lives in Toronto with her husband and daughter.

June Hur’s opening byline offers a crash course in her background. Following her opener, we learn about her education and early days as a writer. 

What makes June Hur’s bio so great is that it offers readers a peek into her personal life outside of writing, which makes her more three-dimensional and relatable.

John Grisham

John Grisham is the author of forty-seven consecutive #1 bestsellers, which have been translated into nearly fifty languages. His recent books include The Judge’s List, Sooley, and his third Jake Brigance novel, A Time for Mercy, which is being developed by HBO as a limited series. Grisham is a two-time winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was honored with the Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction. When he’s not writing, Grisham serves on the board of directors of the Innocence Project and of Centurion Ministries, two national organizations dedicated to exonerating those who have been wrongfully convicted. Much of his fiction explores deep-seated problems in our criminal justice system. John lives on a farm in central Virginia.

Grisham’s bio highlights his writing achievements and provides the reader with a sense of his credibility. The personal details of his life emphasize his belief in justice and equality. 

Grisham’s bio adds a personal touch that also makes him relatable – he offers the reader information about his home – a bit of information that also helps him come across as relatable to the reader, even amongst all of his accomplishments.

Your author biography is never really finished. The more you write , the more experience you gain, and the greater your reputation, the more you can adapt and come up with your own killer author bio.

Even if you’re a first-time author, don’t be intimidated by the bio. You may not have much experience now, but you can still introduce readers into your life and experience. In time, you will establish yourself as a respectable authority in your niche.

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8 Great Author Bio Examples, Analyzed

There’s some awkwardness in composing an author bio, whether you’re an established author or a debut novelist. Its purpose is to concisely share any relevant qualifications or accolades you have, and perhaps show some personality if you feel like it and it’s genre-appropriate. The bio isn’t likely to be the deciding factor when it comes to someone choosing to buy a copy of your book (though it certainly matters more in nonfiction than fiction, where some level of expertise is expected), but it’s very much worth taking the time to write one thoughtfully, even if drawing attention to yourself makes you uncomfortable.

Since there isn’t a single right way to write a great author bio, I've collected 8 case studies that showcase the range you can work within.

1. Ruth Ozeki

“Ruth Ozeki is a novelist, filmmaker and Zen Buddhist priest. She is the author of three novels: My Year of Meats, All Over Creation and A Tale for the Time Being, which was shortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize and translated into 28 languages. She has also written a short memoir, The Face: A Time Code. She is affiliated with the Everyday Zen Foundation and lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, where she teaches creative writing at Smith College and is the Grace Jarcho Ross 1933 Professor of Humanities.”

At this point in her career, Ozeki is a widely recognized writer, so her bio is less about ‘proving’ herself, and more about giving readers a sense of who she is and where her interests lie. She identifies as a filmmaker and Zen Buddhist priest, which reflects some of her passions, and prepares readers for the heartwarming, thoughtful storytelling they can find in her work.

2. Jessica Andrews

“Jessica Andrews writes fiction. Her debut novel, Saltwater, was published in 2019 and won the Portico Prize in 2020 and her second novel, Milk Teeth, was published in 2022. She is a Contributing Editor for ELLE magazine and she writes for the Guardian, the Independent, BBC Radio 4 and Stylist, among others. She was nominated for the ELLE List in 2020 and shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction Futures in 2022. She co-runs literary and arts magazine, The Grapevine, and co-presents literary podcast, Tender Buttons. She is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at City University, London.”

Jessica Andrews is still at the start of a promising literary career, having very recently published two novels. The range of activities she lists in her bio show a writer who’s keeping busy, relevant in the media, and quickly gathering esteem in the literary community. Experience teaching creative writing is always a persuasive note to end on — if young writers are learning the ropes of the craft with your help, that’s something that will make your readers trust your work more.

3. Gretchen McCulloch

“Gretchen McCulloch is an internet linguist and the author of Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language. She is the Resident Linguist at Wired and the co-creator of Lingthusiasm, a podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics. She lives in Montreal, but also on the internet.”

This nonfiction bio keeps it simple: the author is a linguist whose life is all about linguistics: it’s her job, as well as her hobby podcast. With the short but intriguing note at the end (“She lives in Montreal, but also on the internet.”) McCulloch succinctly hints at the playfulness and sense of humor that pervades her writing about linguistics, efficiently giving readers an idea of what her writing is like.

4. Bryan Washington

“Bryan Washington is a writer from Houston. His fiction and essays have appeared in, among other publications, the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, the BBC, Vulture and the Paris Review. He's also a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 winner, the recipient of an Ernest J. Gaines Award, a PEN/Robert W. Bingham prize finalist, a National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize finalist, the recipient of an O. Henry Award and the winner of the 2020 International Dylan Thomas Prize.”

This example shows how little showmanship is required when you’ve got enough accolades to pack your bio. Washington sticks to the facts, which speak for themselves. He’s been published in every writer’s dream publications , and won a series of jaw-dropping awards. There’s really no need for him to try and do anything else in this bio. He’s also writing literary fiction, the genre where prestige is most important, so this summary of his career is ready to impress any intrigued lit fic readers.

5. Ayanna Lloyd Banwo

“Ayanna Lloyd Banwo is a writer from Trinidad & Tobago. She is a graduate of the University of the West Indies and holds an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia, where she is now a Creative and Critical Writing PhD candidate. Her work has been published in Moko Magazine, Small Axe and PREE, among others, and shortlisted for Small Axe Literary Competition and the Wasafiri New Writing Prize. When We Were Birds is her first novel; she is now working on her second. Ayanna lives with her husband in London.”

Ayanna Lloyd Banwo’s bio opens by stating where she’s from, namely Trinidad and Tobago. This isn’t obligatory for all non-US or UK authors at all, but it often feels like an important thing to say if your cultural background is important to you or your work (I do it too). Beyond that, she mentions her education, showing her longtime engagement with literary work. This is a common thing to mention for young or debut authors who haven’t yet amassed award nominations, and in this case it clearly signals that Lloyd Banwo has a strong educational background, a growing publication record, and much promise for the future.

6. Rainbow Rowell

“Rainbow Rowell writes all kinds of stuff. Sometimes she writes about adults (ATTACHMENTS, LANDLINE). Sometimes she writes about teenagers (ELEANOR & PARK, FANGIRL). Sometimes — actually, a lot of the time — she writes about lovesick vampires and guys with dragon wings (THE SIMON SNOW TRILOGY). Recently, she's been writing comics, including her first graphic novel, PUMPKINHEADS, and the monthly SHE-HULK comic for Marvel. She lives in Omaha, Nebraska.”

It’s interesting to see how genre affects bios — in more commercial genres, there’s more room for authors to be informal and playful in the way they describe themselves. Here, Rainbow Rowell humorously summarizes her wide range of interests in a friendly, chatty way that appeals best to the readers of her work, be they adult readers of romance, teenage or young adult readers of YA romance or fantasy, or comic fans. She’s clearly keeping busy, and any reader of her bio knows to expect energetic, irreverent writing.

7. Elizabeth Lilly

“Elizabeth Lilly is an author-illustrator, animator, and graphic designer. Elizabeth was a reading, doodling daydreamer in high school, and, unsure of her path, went to architecture school at Virginia Tech for college. Elizabeth graduated from college in May of 2014. She now makes her stories in a little old house in the little old city of Baltimore, Maryland. Geraldine is her debut picture book.”

Speaking of playful genres, children’s books are definitely the part of the literary world where whimsical bios are most tolerated (and encouraged). Here, personality matters more than accolades, as Elizabeth Lilly’s bio shows. Lilly quickly paints a picture of her character: a reader, daydreamer, a human being finding her path. In other words, very much the imaginative and playful company you might like your child to be in, if you’re going to read a picture book together. The “little old house in the little old city of Baltimore” detail captures a sense of what her work for children will feel like: cute, warm, and welcoming.

8. Chris Power

“Chris Power is the author of A Lonely Man and Mothers, which was shortlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. He lives in London.”

This example is a reminder that bios don’t need to be paragraph-long overtures to your personal accomplishments. If you feel more comfortable keeping your bio as short as possible, that’s absolutely fine — the only two ‘compulsory’ elements are any previously published books, and if you have them, at least one award nomination or win. That’s, essentially, what a bio boils down to: past publications and social validation. If taciturn is more your style, an author bio like Chris Power’s will do the job just fine.

This is a small sample, but on book jackets out there, you’ll find an even greater variety. For inspiration, look for bios in the same genre and career stage as you, but try not to obsess about bios if you can help it. It’s worthwhile trying to write one thoughtfully, but it’s not important enough to warrant an existential crisis!

Kleopatra Olympiou is a writer of literary fiction from Cyprus, and holds an MA in Creative Writing from Durham University. She’s previously written for Electric Literature, LitReactor, and Reedsy’s blog.

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How to Write a Killer Author Bio (With Template)

About the author.

Reedsy's editorial team is a diverse group of industry experts devoted to helping authors write and publish beautiful books.

About Martin Cavannagh

Head of Content at Reedsy, Martin has spent over eight years helping writers turn their ambitions into reality. As a voice in the indie publishing space, he has written for a number of outlets and spoken at conferences, including the 2024 Writers Summit at the London Book Fair.

An author bio is a brief passage that introduces a writer and sums up their work, their authorly credentials, and anything else their readers might need to know about them. 

While author bios may seem like an afterthought, or something to  fill up the backmatter  of your book, it’s actually an unassuming but valuable piece of copy. If done well, an author bio can give you credibility and introduce your readers to your other works.

It can also be used in other promotional or publishing materials, as former Penguin Random House marketer  Rachel Cone-Gorham explains:

“An author bio is something that will let readers get a sense of who you are, and is an important part for pitching media and book proposals.” 

For this reason, it’s important to get your bio right. Here is a 4-step process for writing your author bio:

1. Start with the facts readers need to know

2. open up with relevant biographical details, 3. wow them with your credentials, 4. finish it off with a personal touch.

Start your bio with an opening byline that quickly summarizes your profile, plus your most recent release. In a world full of skimmers, some readers may not get past the first couple of lines of your bio, so it’s important to frontload the essentials. 

For instance, a byline might read:

“Jane Doe is a Professor of Anthropology at UCLA and author of Insights Into Our Past: Tracing the Legacy of Intergenerational Trauma in 19th Century America .”

“Jane Doe is a poet, teacher, and author of the new novel  We Were Already There .”

If your work has won any prestigious awards or earned bestseller status, make sure to mention that here as well.

The great part about writing a one-liner as your opener is that it can double as a short bio for guest articles, social media, etc. — all of which can serve as a valuable part of your book publicity plan. 

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Example: An attention-grabbing intro

Novelist and short story writer Brandon Taylor's whole bio is great, but check out his heavy-hitting first sentence that instantly tells you everything you really need to know:

If you’re stuck for words, you can use his bio and those of other writers  for inspiration. 

RESOURCE: Your free author bio template

FREE RESOURCE

Grab our Author Bio Template

Use this to write an awesome “about me” in less than 5 minutes.

Your author bio is, naturally, a chance for you to introduce yourself, but it’s also an opportunity for you to introduce readers to your body of work, and share a little about your writing history. If you have other titles that you’ve released previously, now’s the time to mention them.

You may also want to include any personal connections to your work, and signpost why they’re relevant. For instance:

With over a decade of writing obituaries for the local paper, Jane has a uniquely wry voice that shines through in her newest collection of essays, which explore the importance we place on legacy.

A professionally trained electrician, Jane has spent the last decade reading and writing romance novels giving her characters a palpable spark! Her latest work is the sequel to her debut novel, In the Arms of a Stranger .

Have an author bio already, but want a second opinion on it? Take our quick quiz to see if it checks off all of the boxes.

Let us grade your author bio

Find out if your author bio is a 10/10. Takes one minute.

Top Tip: Write in the third person

Despite the fact that an author often writes or approves their own bio, it should be written in the third person — ‘they’ rather than ‘I’. Not only is this the industry standard, it also makes it easier to toot your own horn, which you should definitely be doing here.

Example: An author’s lived experience

One great example of a bio that shares biographical details is author Niyati Tamaskar , whose memoir Unafraid draws on her own experiences of cancer and the cultural baggage surrounding it. You can learn more about Niyati and her publishing story here .

Niyati Tamaskar is a mother, engineer, entrepreneur, public speaker, and author. She speaks on issues of cultural bias, the stigma of cancer, and more. Her speaking and media appearances include her signature TEDx talk, a cover and feature spread in Columbus magazine on her journey and message of destigmatizing cancer, and a video created by Breastcancer.org on “How Niyati Tamaskar Overcame Cultural Cancer Stigma to Become an Advocate”—aimed at highlighting the minority experience while facing cancer.

An important job of an “About the Author” section is to boost your credentials, says editor Rachel: “You want to show your qualifications and credibility so that a reader will feel validated in choosing your book to read.”

That being said, it’s not a good idea to start listing every softball trophy you won in middle school. Only stick to credentials that directly relate to the content of your book. According to Rachel, “Qualifications can include writing courses, college degrees, awards, bestseller lists, and accolades or, for fiction authors, even a lifetime of interest.” Here are a few of her examples:

Jane has an MFA in creative writing from Vermont College, and was the recipient of the Vermont College creative writing award.

Jane is a historian at Vermont College and has spent over a decade researching World War 2.

Jane has traveled extensively around Eastern Europe, learning about the history of the region and walking the paths of her characters.

For non-fiction authors, your credentials are incredibly relevant as readers are far more likely to trust an authority on a subject, while fiction authors can focus more on why they write in a specific genre.

Book marketing consultant Rob Eagar suggests that another way to boost your credibility is to “to weave in any endorsements you may have received from well-known outlets… Readers pay more attention to authors with a proven track record.”

For example:

[Famous author] says Jane Doe is a unique new voice in the thriller genre.

How to Build an Amazing Author Blog

10 lessons to help you start your blog and boost your book sales.

Example: Amanda Ripley’s expert qualifications

One author using their credentials to their best advantage is non-fiction author Amanda Ripley. Check out her “About the Author”: 

Top tip: Keep it short

A good author bio is efficient beyond just the first line, as book launch specialist Joel Pitney suggests:

“People don't want to read long bios! Keep it under 300 words. Only include relevant materials and be as succinct as possible. If you've won a lot of awards, for example, only include the most impressive ones. Same goes if you’ve published a couple of books; only include your most successful three.”

Author bios are not a place for you to delve into a lengthy explanation of your history. However, you also don’t want your bio to be devoid of any personality. Adding a bit of color to your bio helps readers imagine who you are. Plus, if they can relate to you, it might be an extra push for them to buy your book. 

That’s why Joel Pitney suggests: “If there's room, and it's relevant, you can add some color, like where you live or something interesting that might not obviously relate to your writing career, but that makes you a more interesting person.”

This can be done subtly, like by referring to your location in your byline: 

“New-York based psychologist, Jane Doe…”

Or you can include a brief illustration of your lifestyle, says Rachel: “Jane lives and works out of her home at the base of Mount Washington in New Hampshire, and spends her summers hiking and camping with her two children and husband.”

Finally, marketing consultant Rob suggests closing out with a quippy-one liner that illustrates what kind of writer you are. “If your writing is known for its humor, let it show in your bio.” For example:

Jane hopes to write her next novel soon, if she can stop reading other people's novels instead.

Example: Natalie Barelli’s chatty tone

Check out fiction writer Natalie Barelli’s bio for an example of personalization done right: 

Natalie Barelli can usually be found reading a book, and that book will more likely than not be a psychological thriller. Writing a novel was always on her bucket list, and eventually, with Until I Met Her, it became a reality. After He Killed Me is the second and final book in her Emma Fern Series. When not absorbed in the latest gripping page-turner, Natalie loves cooking, knits very badly, enjoys riding her Vespa around town, and otherwise spends far too much time at the computer. She lives in Australia, with her husband and extended family.

An author bio is unique to the writer, so everyone’s will look different — but by following our 4-step process and using the author bio template, you’ll include everything you need to maximize your chances of winning over readers.

8 responses

Diane says:

07/06/2018 – 09:10

Excellent post! I really liked the way explained each point with examples. Author can write a big book but broke into sweat when it comes to write a bio about themselves. Sometimes they also need paper writing help. It have to be short and interesting, not boring. In that case your article will help them to write a killer one.

Nancy Man says:

20/06/2018 – 00:10

This was super helpful -- thanks! Sticking to these four elements worked great for me. I've finally got a bio that I'm not rolling my eyes at. :)

Antigone Blackwell says:

08/12/2018 – 19:01

If someone is reading this article, it is highly unlikely that they can boast being bestselling authors or share that they are on the third book of a highly successful series. More examples with start up authors would be great.

India Government Schemes says:

12/03/2019 – 11:42

This is awesome, but i am seeing in this days mostly hide there Bio in Blogs, But they don't know In The Blog Author Bio is also a Ranking Factor in the Google Search Ranking.

Joe Robinson says:

08/05/2019 – 12:28

Very helpful article that has helped me write my author bio for my upcoming book "Move Your Marriage to Greatness" a Marriage Replenishment Work designed to help couple achieve extraordinary accomplishments that are uncommon in many marriages today. I appreciate you making this article available.

Jitender Sharma says:

10/09/2019 – 05:00

Thanks for your post

Mike aantonio says:

14/11/2019 – 10:06

After reading the bio. samples mentioned above. Is it really necessary to introduce the author as a third party. Can't we directly say " Hi I am a blogger from so and so ......."

↪️ Martin Cavannagh replied:

15/11/2019 – 09:15

You can do... but it's not standard practice.

Comments are currently closed.

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Home / Book Publishing / How to Write an Author Bio [With Examples and Templates]

How to Write an Author Bio [With Examples and Templates]

To write a great author bio, you need to know your target audience, cater to your genre, brag (but not too much), keep it brief, and call the reader to action.

When you’re self-publishing on Amazon , you need to put some serious thought into the author bio on your Amazon book page. Don’t haphazardly throw together some sentences and hit the publish button.

The author bio isn’t your most important tool. (The most essential tools are the book reviews , book cover , and synopsis/blurb .) But the author bio is another critical tool that you shouldn’t leave out.

Can I just leave my author bio out? No, you cannot just leave out your author bio, even if you wrote a short story or novella. It looks unprofessional, scares away potential readers, foregoes an opportunity to connect with your target audience, and leads to fewer book sales.

Plus, writing a good author bio doesn’t take that long.

If you’re not Grisham, or Godin, or Ferriss, or Fleming, very few people will buy a novel by you purely based on name recognition. So put a little work into your bio, and you won’t regret it.

Note: The Author Bio is just one of many parts of a book. I have a whole series of posts on the subject, and I highly recommend you check those out as well!

• What is an author bio?
• Examples of phenomenal author bios
• Tips on making a persuasive, engaging author bio
• How to add the bio to your book page
• An author bio template checklist

Table of contents

• What should an author's bio include?
• Is an author bio actually important?
• What’s your book about?
• Who are you writing for?
• 4 Writing Tips For Creating an Author Bio:
• Step 3: Add the Bio to Your Book Page
• Podcast Episode: The Perfect Picture For Your Author Bio
• 6 Examples of Phenomenal Author Bios
• Can you hire a freelancer to write your author bio?
• How to Write a Bio for Your Author Website
• Author Bio Template
• Where does your author bio go?
• How often should you update your “About the Author” page?

For clarification, on Amazon, there are 2 kinds of bio:

• The generic bio on your “ Author Page ”
• Separate bios for each of your books

The advice in this post is aimed at your bio on your individual book pages, although much of it will still be relevant to your main Author Page.

Why Should You Trust Me?

I've actually been writing and formatting books for a long time. Over 10 years so far, and counting.

But that's not the real reason, because there are plenty of authors who have lots of experience, but know next to nothing about the different parts of a book, or book formatting in general.

The real reason you should trust me is because I actually created my own formatting software that solved all my problems. I called it Atticus.

But this isn't meant to be a sales pitch. I just want to make sure it's clear that I know what I'm talking about. The amount of research that went into not only formatting my own books, but also creating a formatting software is huge.

I researched everything, which led me to learn all about every. single. part. of. a. book. And there were a lot more than I realized.

And of course, that includes the Author Bio.

So if all that makes sense, hopefully you'll come along with me as show you everything I've learned.

Also called “About the Author,” an author bio is:

• A paragraph about you as a writer
• Your credentials
• Your interests
• A call to action
• Other relevant information you want to share with your target audience

An author biography is your chance to connect with readers beyond just a byline.

Everyone needs a stellar front cover design, an attention-grabbing book title , and a sophisticated keyword strategy . But those book marketing musts simply draw users to see your book’s product page.

A good author bio (and book reviews and book description ) compels them to actually buy the book.

The author bio establishes you as the kind of writer whom your target market ought to read. It’s where you forge a connection with potential readers and get them to trust you. Readers should want to know what you have to say based on your author bio.

If you take the author bio seriously and get it right, you’ll sell more books.

You should include your name, relevant accomplishments, and a call to action in your author’s bio. Aim for a bio of 60-90 words in length.

If your book is humorous, inject humor. If your book is melodramatic, add a little melodrama. Tailor your bio to your genre, target audience, and the individual book it’s for.

If possible, include links to your website or social media , so people can find out more about you.

Include a picture when possible. This picture should be a professional headshot of you smiling or looking serious, depending on your genre. Do not skimp on the headshot. An unprofessional author headshot screams low-quality content.

Yes, a good author bio is actually important because:

• It builds credibility
• It affirms whether what you have to say is worth reading
• It tells your target audience that you have written a book for them
• Readers may relate to your personal story
• You will sell more books

“No one reads the author bio,” I hear you say. But you’re wrong. While not everyone cares about the author’s bio, some care a lot.

First of all, unless you’re a household name, you must build credibility with the reader. If a reader doesn’t think you’re credible, they will read your book with a cynical eye and judge every mistake they find. Or worse, they won’t buy your book in the first place.

Second of all, more than ever, consumers are buying books from writers they want to support. If someone learns more about and relates to the author, they are much more likely to buy.

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How to Write a Powerful Author Bio for Your Book

Here are 3 steps to write an awesome author bio (About the Author) and upload it onto Amazon:

• Figure out your genre and target audience
• Write the bio
• Add the bio to your book page

How do you write a bio for a first-time author? First-time authors might not be able to include any literary accomplishments, like other best-selling books and prestigious awards. But first-time writers can include relevant expertise that pertains to your book. Also, any author can inject personality and a call to action, no matter if this is their first book.

Step 1 : Figure Out Your Genre and Target Audience

Answer these 2 crucial questions to understand your genre and target audience:

Your author bio needs to compliment the genre and subject matter of your book. Bios irrelevant to the book confuse potential readers.

While this may seem like obvious advice, a lot of irrelevant content finds its way into many author bios. Consider:

• If your nightmare-inducing horror novel contains a perky and cheerful author description about your love for puppies and former career as a glassblower, you forfeit an opportunity to connect readers with your writing.
• If your middle-grade comedy has an author bio that reads like a middle school textbook , your audience may be confused whether you’re able to write comedy.
• If your book is a contemporary romance novel with a middle-aged female protagonist, your author bio’s personality and content should relate to the right target audience.
• If you’re writing about tax-deduction strategies for real estate investors, your bio should present your expertise — why anyone should listen to you on the subject.
• If your book is a spiritual guide to personal growth, some life-affirming positivity will improve your bio.

You need to think about your target reader. Hopefully, you had a type of reader in mind when writing the book . You always need to know who would want to buy and read your book.

Figure out your target reader, then write your author bio for that person.

For non-fiction authors, your ideal reader probably wants to read your credentials, your life experience, and what qualifies you to speak on a particular topic.

For fiction writers, your ideal reader may be looking for a unique, exciting personality to come out through the bio. You may briefly include credibility-building credentials, such as if you earned an MFA in Creative Writing.

In many cases, creating an “avatar” of your customer — with a name, location, and personality — is a valuable way to both develop your author bio and strategically target your book marketing efforts. Check out this guide on how to create a customer avatar.

Don’t add information “just in case” a different kind of reader might appreciate it. You end up with a behemoth of a bio that no one reads because it’s too daunting and unfocused.

Step 2 : Write the Bio

Now you need to write the actual words of the bio. Stick to this checklist on how to write an author bio:

• Begin with a punchy, impactful first sentence.
• Introduce your area of expertise or your unique personality, depending on the genre.
• Build credibility without overly bragging.
• Add a personal touch, such as a relatable profession or quirky hobby.
• Finish on a call to action (check out the new book, follow you on social media, etc.).

While you’re writing, always ask yourself, “Is this relevant to my reader?”

Most readers won’t care where you were born (unless it’s a book about where you live), what high school you went to, or that you always wanted to become a full-time writer.

This isn’t to say that your bio should be impersonal. On the contrary! This is your opportunity to make readers feel like they know you. Your personality and/or expertise should make them want to read what you wrote.

• Write in the third person. “About the author” demands the third person. While it may feel a bit weird to write “he” or “she” rather than “I” in the first person, there’s one significant benefit: Your relevant accomplishments and accolades will sound far less boastful.
• Don’t brag too much . Don't go overboard showing off because everyone knows you wrote it. Even if the author bio is in the third person, state your achievements, but don’t become a braggart. Sprinkle in a bit of humility and modesty as well.
• Keep your author bio short. The faster they can read about you, the faster they can buy your book. Aim for 60-90 words and don’t go above 150. It takes effort and practice to distill everything into such a short space. Once you’ve nailed it, you can fit a great deal of personality and information into those 60-90 words.
• Use the bio like a business card . Give readers a way to interact with you by adding your website or social media info. At the very least, they’ll be able to find out more about you and explore your other works. Adding this info at the end is the most common call to action in author bios.

Step 3 : Add the Bio to Your Book Page

You can add your author bio to your Amazon book page by visiting Amazon Author Central , select your book, and add it in the “About the Author” section.

You can add the “About the Author” page into your back matter for a physical book. On most word processors like Scrivener or Vellum, you should be able to generate the author bio into your print-ready file.

But one really annoying bit about adding an author bio to most books is that you have to copy and paste it for every book. This gets cumbersome when you have ten books and need to make one tiny change in each of them.

Unfortunately, most programs like Vellum and Scrivener do not have a way to do “templates” where you update a single Author Bio page, and it gets updated across all your books.

But Atticus can.

In Atticus you can save as a template and then reuse that template wherever you want. And the best part is, if you change the template, it will change it for all your books. Check it out!

Here are some real-life author bios from Amazon or on a back cover that combine most or all of the tips above:

Forgotten Legacy : Robin Perini, the Publisher’s Weekly and internationally bestselling author of Forgotten Secrets, is devoted to giving her readers fast-paced, high-stakes adventures with a love story sure to melt their hearts. A RITA Award finalist and winner of the prestigious Romance Writers of America Golden Heart Award in 2011, she is also a nationally acclaimed writing instructor. By day, she’s an analyst for an advanced technology corporation, but in honor of her mother, Robin has become a passionate advocate for those who battle Alzheimer’s disease. She loves to hear from readers. Visit her web­site at www.robinperini.com.

[Length: 97 words]

D a mn Delicious Meal Prep: 115 Easy Recipes for Low-Calories, High-Energy Living : Chungah Rhee is the founder, recipe developer, and photographer of Damn Delicious. What began as a grad school hobby is now a top food blog, with millions of readers coming to her site for easy weeknight recipes and simplified gourmet meals. She lives and continues to cook non-stop in Los Angeles, with her corgi, Butters. Her first cookbook was published in 2016 by Oxmoor House. Visit her at damndelicious.net.

[Length: 70 words]

Long Range Shooting Handbook: Complete Beginner's Guide to Long Range Shooting : “Ryan Cleckner served as a special operations sniper team leader with the U.S. Army's elite 1st Ranger Bn. on multiple combat deployments. He is a graduate of the premier Special Operations Target Interdiction Course (SOTIC), among other military training courses, and has taught snipers and police sharpshooters from around the world. Ryan has a series of online instructional videos known for their ability to explain complex topics in a simple and digestible way. Ryan is currently a firearms industry professional and an attorney.”

[Length: 83 words]

Diary of a Farting Creeper: Why Does the Creeper Fart When He Should Explode? (Volume 1) : Who is Wimpy Fart? Wimpy Fart loves Minecraft and writes awesome Minecraft books for YOU because you are the best Minecraft fans in the world. You can email Wimpy Fart to tell him about your favorite Minecraft books, or to talk about really loud farts. [email protected] Oh – Wimpy Fart reads all your awesome Amazon reviews and likes to know what you want to read about in Minecraft books!

[Length: 68 words]

Joanna Penn writes non-fiction books for authors and is an award-nominated, New York Times and USA Today bestselling thriller author as J.F. Penn. She’s a podcaster and an award-winning creative entrepreneur. Her site, TheCreativePenn.com has been voted in the Top 100 sites for writers by Writer's Digest.

[Length: 49 words]

John Scalzi writes books, which, considering where you’re reading this, makes perfect sense. He’s best known for writing science fiction, including the New York Times bestseller Redshirts, which won the Hugo Award for Best Novel. He also writes non-fiction, on subjects ranging from personal finance to astronomy to film, was the Creative Consultant for the Stargate: Universe television series. He enjoys pie, as should all right thinking people. You can get to his blog by typing the word “Whatever” into Google. No, seriously, try it.

[Length: 85 words]

If you're looking for author bio perfection, Scalzi’s is as close as you're gonna find. His bio lends himself credibility, demonstrates his personality, and has one of the most unique calls to action you'll ever read. How many of you actually googled “whatever” just now?

Yes, you can hire a freelance writer or a ghostwriter to write your author bio to make sure it’s as amazing as it should be. Their creative writing know-how can produce a bio worthy of a good read and help you better connect with your audience if you’re having a hard time with the bio.

Hopefully, because you’re a writer, you’re able to follow the steps in this article to create your own bio. But in many cases, writing about yourself is more challenging than writing any other prose. (No shame, I promise!)

To write an author bio for your website, follow these 8 tips and tricks:

• Determine what your book’s about, and tailor your bio to compliment the style and tone.
• Determine your target audience, and tailor your bio to attract those specific readers.
• Begin your bio with a punchy first sentence.
• Build credibility by demonstrating your accomplishments, but don’t brag too much.
• Add links to relevant interviews (on NPR or PBS, for example), news articles (ever been featured in The Wall Street Journal ?), and Amazon sales pages.
• Finish with a call to action — perhaps a link to your sales page.
• Make sure your word count is 60-90 words.
• When you review it, take out all irrelevant words. Will your target audience care about each word? If not, take that word out.

On an author’s website , you can go into more detail, list more important works or achievements, and link to other pages on your website to find more info.

Also, an author website bio lends itself more to the first-person than a book page bio. Feel free to use first person or third person, as long as you stick to one or the other.

There's no one-size-fits-all approach, but the following checklist provides a structure you can use as an author bio template:

• Add a personal touch, such as a hobby or favorite TV show.
• Finish on a call to action (check out the new book, follow on social media, etc.).

If you browse bestselling author bios, you'll notice they tend to follow this sequence.

The content and tone you include in your author bio will depend on several factors:

• Content and tone of your book
• Genre (or multiple genres)
• Previous works
• Previous achievements
• Personal preference
• Medium (eBook only, literary magazine, etc.)

In a print book, your author bio should go in the back matter of your book or on the dust jacket sleeve.

You should also place an author bio on your website that goes into a little more detail than the bio in your book.

For an eBook on Amazon, your author bio goes below the suggested books. Here are the headings that appear before the “About the Author” section:

You should update your “About the Author” page or individual author bios any time something significant changes in your life or career, especially honors and awards or when your next book comes out.

Publish a new book? Update all your old bios.

Win an award? Update all your old bios.

Featured on a famous talk show? You may want to update all your old bios.

Going through a divorce or other major family issues? If you mention your spouse or now-estranged children in your bio, you may want to change that. (I know that’s dark, but it happens and is worth considering.)

Earn a prestigious honor or academic position? You know what you should do.

I’ll show you mine…

In summary, the steps in this post take you through everything you need when writing your own author bio. Refer to them when you start writing – and you’ll have an engaging author bio that should easily sell more books.

My own author bio is listed just below for reference (and ridicule, if you like).

I don't have to tell you, I'm pretty much a techy goofball. Hopefully, my bio does a great job of conveying just that. Using humor and an upbeat tone, I want to let Kindlepreneur readers know exactly who I am as a content writer in 34 words.

Special thanks to John Scalzi for inspiring me to write this specific type of bio.

Dave Chesson

When I’m not sipping tea with princesses or lightsaber dueling with little Jedi, I’m a book marketing nut. Having consulted multiple publishing companies and NYT best-selling authors, I created Kindlepreneur to help authors sell more books. I’ve even been called “The Kindlepreneur” by Amazon publicly, and I’m here to help you with your author journey.

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67 thoughts on “ How to Write an Author Bio [With Examples and Templates] ”

After one year locked at home because of COVID-19, I decided to have as much fun as I had when teaching at school. That’s how “A Modern Superhero” was born. I enjoy good food, that’s why I need to do some exercise. By the way, run to my social media for some free perks.

Should I or should I not say what my day job is? Yes it has and no it hasn’t to do with my books. As I am an architect, I have well-structured novels! Lol. But is that boring? As I am not a van driver or pizza delivery girl, why would it interest anyone. I don’t know what’s boring anymore. Please help! Thanks.

Depending on your niche or subject, not sure. I’ll guess that you’re writing some sort of fiction. If that is the case, a mention of something that is important to you is fine, but don’t drag it on and focus on it. If you’ve used levity in your writing, then you can say something like “Architect by day, crime novelist by night.”

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Beloved Southern Author Tina McElroy Ansa Dies at 74, Leaving Behind A Legacy of Storytelling

Source: Crossroads Writers Conference & Literary Festival

Beloved southern author Tina McElroy Ansa, best known for her works inspired by being raised in the South, has died at age 74.

According to Glynn County Coroner Marc Neu, Ansa died on Tuesday (Sept. 10) at age 74, 12 WMAZ reports. The Macon, Georgia native was revered in literary circles not only as a renowned author and writer but also for her work as a journalist, specifically at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Per her online biography, Ansa considered herself part of “a writing tradition, one of those little southern girls who always knew she wanted to tell stories.”

A native of Middle Georgia, she grew up in the 1950s and used her father’s juke joint as the catalyst for her storytelling. She was often inspired by her grandfather and other strangers who frequented the establishment.

As a graduate of Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, Ansa enjoyed giving back to her fellow sister, with whom she shared a love of storytelling as the founder and publisher of DownSouth Press, the independent publishing company she launched in 2007 to promote American fiction and non-fiction literature.

Her roommate turned “sister-friend” took to social media to honor Ansa and share the news of her passing with the world.

“Tina was an award-winning novelist, journalist, writing doula, supporter of the vast number of her ‘good lil schoolgirls,’ founder of the Sea Island Writers Retreat, publisher of DownSouth Press, storyteller, public speaker, podcaster, an editor and an avid gardener,” wrote Wanda Lloyd.

Lloyd added, “She was a leader in the writing community and a friend to more people than we can possibly imagine.”

As a novelist, Ansa published more than ten books, including Baby of the Family, which former First Lady Michelle Obama quoted during her 2011 commencement speech at Ansa’s alma mater, Spelman, mentioned above.

Her other works include Ugly Ways, The Hand I Fan With, You Know Better, and many others. In 2008, alongside her late husband, fellow creative and award-winning filmmaker Joneè, Baby of the Family was adapted into a feature film. He died in 2020.

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Winner of 2024 Fringe Young Writers Award announced

We are happy to announce that Róisin McMullan is the winner of the Young Writers Award at Fringe 2024.

The Young Writers Award was set up in 2018 to encourage the next generation of arts writers at the Fringe. Any writers aged 16–21 were eligible to take part, submitting work either published or unpublished. 

As recipient of the award, Róisin will receive one-to-one mentoring from arts writers at the Scotsman and paid work as part of the paper’s review team at Fringe 2025.

Róisin said: "I am genuinely honoured to be the winner of the 2024 Fringe Young Writers Award. This is the first time I've had the opportunity to attend the Fringe and I had the most incredible time; the festival is so special in its celebration of personal creativity. It was a privilege to review at this year's Fringe, it has given me a great amount of purpose and to be awarded for the work I completed there means a great deal to me. In an industry that often feels extremely exclusive, I am so grateful to be given a voice and an opportunity. I am filled with hope for a future career in arts journalism and I am extremely excited to hone my craft with support from The Scotsman. Thank you very much."

Shona McCarthy, Chief Executive of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, said: “We are always delighted to support the return of the Young Fringe Writers’ Award. The Fringe is a wonderful opportunity for writers to learn and develop at the very start of their career, and this award gives us the opportunity to support and encourage emerging writers. Congratulations to Róisin on receiving the 2024 award and we look forward to following her career and hope to welcome her back to the Fringe in the future. Thank you to the Scotsman team for supporting Róisin over the coming months.”

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Ayo Edebiri

Actor Ayo Edebiri is best known for her Emmy-winning role as chef Sydney on the TV show The Bear .

1995-present

Latest News: Ayo Edebiri Seeks Lead Actress Emmy Award

As chef Sydney’s role on The Bear  continues to grow, actor Ayo Edebiri finds herself in the spotlight in new ways. On September 15, at the  2024 Emmy Awards , she’s competing in a new category.

Edebiri, 28, won her first Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in January for her performance on the kitchen comedy-drama also starring Jeremy Allen White . This time around, she’s nominated in the Lead Actress category and faces fellow nominees Selena Gomez , Quinta Brunson, Maya Rudolph , Jean Smart, and Kristen Wiig .

While The Bear received 23 nominations total—the most ever for a comedy series —Edebiri has maintained the accolades aren’t what truly matter to the cast and crew. “Getting to make this work is the gift and also, like, getting to have people really feel impacted by it and, you know, moved by it. That’s the gift on top of the gift,” she said in June .

Who Is Ayo Edebiri?

Quick facts, early life and education, early comedy and tv writing career, emmy and golden globe for the bear.

• Movies: Bottoms, Inside Out 2, and Upcoming Films

Personal Life

Actor Ayo Edebiri is best known for her TV role as sous chef Sydney Adamu on The Bear , for which she won an Emmy and Golden Globe Award in 2024. Prior to this breakout role, Edebiri performed as a standup comedian and worked as a writer for multiple television shows, including Dickinson and the animated comedy Big Mouth . Edebiri received her first major acting opportunity in the latter as the voice of Missy. More recently, she starred in the 2023 teen comedy movie Bottoms and voiced Envy in 2024’s animated hit Inside Out 2 .

FULL NAME: Ayo Edebiri BORN: October 3, 1995 BIRTHPLACE: Boston, Massachusetts ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Libra

Ayo Edebiri was born October 3, 1995, in Boston and grew up in the city’s Dorchester neighborhood. Both of her parents are immigrants to the United States, with her father originally from Nigeria and her mother from Barbados.

An only child, Edebiri was greatly influenced by religion while growing up. She attended a Pentecostal church with her family at least twice a week and told The New Yorker in June 2023 that the Bible helped spark her interest in storytelling. She frequently wrote stories in her journal and, by the time she was around 8 or 9 years old, drafted a fantasy novel about an orphan girl.

She then developed a passion for visual storytelling after watching Westerns with her father, including A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), both starring Clint Eastwood . But in terms of her future, “I didn’t really think of acting as a job that I could do. I wanted a real job that would make me money,” she said . Still, she fulfilled her creative instincts by performing improv during middle and high school.

Edebiri attended predominantly white institutions and received her high school education at Boston Latin School, established in 1635 and now the oldest public school in the United States. Her parents encouraged her to study to become a teacher, and she enrolled at New York University. After two years, she began to reconsider her future. She switched her major to dramatic writing and began to perform stand-up comedy at the encouragement of her friend Rachel Sennott. By the time Edebiri graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2017, she was determined to pursue a comedy career.

After graduation, Edebiri remained in New York City and continued to perform stand-up routines. She signed up for open mics and other gigs across Manhattan and Brooklyn, sometimes performing multiple times in one day.

Edebiri told Forbes in 2019 that she gave herself two years—until her undergraduate teaching degree expired—to try to make it in comedy or else she would return to school and study for her master’s degree. “I gave myself a little challenge and it turned out okay,” she said, as that same year she had a set featured on Comedy Central’s Up Next series.

Off the recognition from her stand-up, Edebiri began to attract interest for her writing ability. She soon moved to Los Angeles and began writing for television shows such as the NBC sitcom Sunnyside , the FX comedy What We Do in the Shadows , and the Apple TV+ comedy-drama Dickinson , starring Hailee Steinfeld as a fictional version of Emily Dickinson .

At one of her comedy sets, Edebiri had also drawn the attention of comedian Nick Kroll, co-creator of the Netflix animated series Big Mouth , an adult coming-of-age comedy about teenagers navigating puberty. “She was, like, 24, and already so in control of her voice,” Kroll told The New Yorker , and so he invited Edebiri to interview for a seat in the show’s writing room. Edebiri got the job and began writing for the show’s fifth season when the opportunity for an expanded role opened up.

During the fourth season of Big Mouth in 2020, Edebiri began voicing the character Missy in her first major acting role. She took over the part from comedian Jenny Slate, who announced in June 2020 she would no longer voice Missy because the character was biracial yet she is white. “Black characters on an animated show should be played by Black people,” Slate wrote in an Instagram post . The show’s creators likewise apologized for their initial casting decision.

Show co-creator Andrew Goldberg told Variety that Edebiri, who auditioned and had multiple callbacks with the production team, was ultimately chosen because she brought “so much of herself” to the role and identified with the character. “I was definitely a very uncomfortable child, so I think the show speaks to that and a lot of those feelings, which still resonate with me as an adult,” Edebiri said in August 2020. Unfortunately, according to The New Yorker , the casting decision made the actor and her parents the subject of harassment—leading Edebiri to remove information about her family from the internet.

Despite this, she has voiced Missy through 32 episodes of the show and is expected to reprise the role for Big Mouth ’s eighth and final season in 2025. A release date hasn’t been announced.

With the success of Big Mouth , Edebiri began regularly appearing on camera as well. She starred with her friend Rachel Sennott in the Comedy Central sketch miniseries Ayo and Rachel are Single in 2020, playing fictionalized versions of themselves. She also played Hattie on six episodes of Dickinson in 2021 and had appearances in the anthology series The Premise (2021) and the HBO talk show Pause with Sam Jay (2022). Edebiri was clearly on the rise and, by this point, eyed the role that would launch her into stardom.

In 2021, Edebiri received an audition notice for The Bear , a new comedy-drama series about a gifted chef (played by Jeremy Allen White ) who returns to Chicago to take over a failing sandwich shop previously run by his late brother. Series creator Christopher Storer, who had eaten lunch with Edebiri in 2019 and promised they would work together someday, eventually offered her the role of aspiring sous chef Sydney Adamu.

To prepare, Edebiri drew on her past experience working in New York City restaurants in the early days of her comedy career. According to People , she also trained with White at the Institute of Culinary Education in Pasadena, California, and worked in the kitchens of multiple Michelin-star restaurants. “It needs to look real. And if we’re practicing it, you might as well make it taste real,” she told The New York Times .

The Bear was an immediate hit, with critics praising its writing and acting. The show won Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy at the 2024 Golden Globes and received 10 Emmys out of 13 total nominations, including Outstanding Comedy Series. Edebiri has received plenty of accolades herself, winning Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Musical or Comedy TV Series at the Globes. Days later, she was named Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series at the 75 th Emmy Awards, delayed from 2023 because of writers and actors strikes.

Edebiri is again nominated at the upcoming 2024 Emmy Awards but this time in the category of Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. For the show’s third season, which premiered in June 2024, the actor also directed an episode. Multiple media outlets have reported The Bear  was renewed for Season 4, though there hasn’t been an official announcement from FX. 

Since The Bear began , Edebiri has appeared on a variety of popular TV shows, including the Netflix anthology series Black Mirror , the Max animated comedy Clone High , and the ABC sitcom Abbott Elementary . She also hosted Saturday Night Live  in February 2024.

Movies: Bottoms , Inside Out 2 , and Upcoming Films

Buoyed by her success on TV, Edebiri appeared in a number of major movie releases in 2023, including voice roles in the animated superhero films Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem , as well as a part in the mockumentary Theater Camp . She and Rachel Sennott teamed up once again for the 2023 comedy movie Bottoms , in which they play queer high school students who organize a fight club in order to lose their virginity to popular cheerleaders.

In June 2024, Edebiri lent her voice to emotion Envy in the animated sequel Inside Out 2 , which grossed more than $724 million  within its first week and a half in theaters and eventually surpassed Frozen 2 as the highest-grossing animated movie of all-time globally . This September, she co-stars in a sci-fi comedy about time travel, Omni Loop , with Mary-Louise Parker.

Two of the actor’s next roles introduce her to new genres. She is starring in  a horror movie called Opus  and is part of the cast for the thriller After the Hunt , which began production  in July 2024. The latter movie also stars  Julia Roberts  and Chloë Sevigny. Elsewhere, Edebiri filmed Ella McCay —a political comedy starring Emma Mackey,  Woody Harrelson , and Jamie Lee Curtis —in the first half of 2024. Her busy year might account for the scheduling conflict that led her to drop out  of the Marvel Studios movie Thunderbolts* , currently scheduled for a May 2025 release.

Edebiri has shared little detail about her personal life and dating history. She identified as queer in a September 2023 interview with Refinery29 .

The actor is more open about her furry companion, a rescued chihuahua mix named Gromit. She explained to People in August 2023 she often brings the dog with her to writers’ rooms and production sets. “I’ve been lucky enough to be on sets where they know Gromit, and they love Gromit, like The Bear ,” she said, adding the pooch often hangs out with showrunner Christopher Storer.

• Humor is a weapon—a powerful one. And it’s also a balm, a salve that you can use to heal and even to start conversations.
• I want to try to help in whatever capacity I can to make the future that I want to live in. I don’t know totally what that looks like, but I’m also okay with not knowing as long as I keep pushing, and the people around me are pushing, too.
• I like working, because I like my job, so that part is great. And if it means that people are responding to the work, then I have truly, truly, truly zero complaints. It’s, like, a dream come true.
• Oh my God—all of my agents’ and managers’ assistants! To the people who answer my emails, y’all are real ones. Thank you for answering my crazy, crazy emails.

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Tyler Piccotti first joined the Biography.com staff as an Associate News Editor in February 2023, and before that worked almost eight years as a newspaper reporter and copy editor. He is a graduate of Syracuse University. When he's not writing and researching his next story, you can find him at the nearest amusement park, catching the latest movie, or cheering on his favorite sports teams.

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