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Welcome
to the Biographers' Club
The
Biographers' Club is an umbrella organisation which seeks to educate,
inspire, promote and foster a better understanding of the art of
biography and its relevance across the broad spectrum of human
endeavour. Through our events, we create a forum for this
understanding, a public benefit for all in the art of biography across
all media and disciplines, and a professional and social interaction
among its membership.
Now taking submissions for the 2010 Tony Lothian Prize and the 2010 Best First Biography Prize. Click here on how to enter.
Latest News:
PLEASE JOIN US FOR A SUMMER PICNIC IN THE LOVELY GARDENS OF CHARLESTON FARMHOUSE ON MAY 26th
Our summer outing this year is to the Charleston Literary Festival at
Charleston Farmhouse at the foot of the South Downs in East Sussex, former
home of Vanessa Bell, Lytton Strachey and Ralph and Frances Partridge of
the Bloomsbury Group.
We will leave by coach from Victoria Station in London (exact location to
be confirmed) at 2pm arriving at Charleston in time for a tour of the house
and a Prosecco picnic tea in the picturesque Folly Garden if the sun is
shining or in the Old Pottery in the event of rain.
At 6pm there will be a Biographers Club event, Up Close and Personal with
Michael Bloch, Selina Hastings and Miranda Seymour chaired by Andrew
Lownie. Our biographers will discuss whether it is inhibiting or
invaluable to have had a personal relationship with the subject of their
books. Michael Bloch, a close friend of James Lees-Milne is both his
biographer and the editor of his inimitable diaries. Selina Hastings' The
Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham was widely considered the literary
biography of 2009. She was a friend of her previous subject, Rosamond
Lehmann. Miranda Seymour's most recent biography is Chaplin's Girl. She
has also written a revealing memoir of her father. Biographers' Club
founder and President, Andrew Lownie - author of a biography of John Buchan - will preside over what promises to be an instructive and revealing
discussion.
The coach will leave for the return trip to London at 8pm.
Tickets to cover travel, a tour of the house, the picnic and our author
event cost £35.
Please send cheques made payable to the Biographers'
Club to Jane Mays, 21 Marsden Street, London NW5 3HE.
These will not be cashed until May 14th but will confirm your place on the trip. We recommend early booking as places on the coach are limited. The price for
those wishing to make their own way to Charleston is £21. Parking at
Charleston is free.
Biographers Club Summer Party:
Join us for our London Summer Party on Monday 14 June from 6.30 to 9pm
at the Royal Overseas League, Park Place off St James's St, London SW1 in their beautiful gardens (with indoor space available in the event of an English shower)
Copious canapes and drinks available - Price £ 25 per person.
To book, please contact secretary@biographersclub.co.uk.
You can pay by cheque or credit/debit card.
Payment by cheque to:
Susan Ronald
The Biographers' Club
79 Marsham St
Suite 6.17
London SW1P 4SB
Or please contact Susan direct to give your credit/debit card details over the phone.
Other events:
The Diane Middlebrook Fund
Many of you will remember Diane Middlebrook - a regular attendee of
Biographers Club events, a distinguished biographer and a good friend
to many of us – who sadly died of cancer two years ago. In her memory
the Diane Middlebrook Memorial Writers Residence , which will fund
40-50 writers annually, is being set up at the Djerassi Resident
Artists Programme in California. £35,000 is being sought from the
“British Friends of Diane Middlebrook” and I very much hope that
members of the Biographers Club will want to contribute. Those wishing
to do so should go to www.djerassi.org,
click support and then “Diane Middlebrook Building Fund”. Click on
“donate now”, enter the requested information being sure to add “Diane
Middlebrook Building Fund” in the Gift Acknowledgements box
The Biographers’ Club Prize-Giving Dinner, 22 October 2009 at Banqueting House, Whitehall
This year the Biographers’ Club presented three prizes: the Lifetime Services to Biography Award, Best First Biography and the Tony Lothian Prize.
The inaugural Lifetime Services to Biography Award
was presented to Sir Michael Holroyd, whose books include biographies
of Lytton Strachey and George Bernard Shaw and the memoir Basil Street Blues.
A tireless campaigner for the promotion of literature, Michael Holroyd
is a former Chairman of the Society of Authors and the National Book
League (now Booktrust) and a past President of English PEN. He was
Chairman of the Strachey Trust between 1990 and 1995, and of the
Literature Panel of the Arts Council of England until 1995. He was
also, until recently, Chairman of the Royal Society of Literature and
of the Public Lending Right Advisory Committee. In 1989 he was awarded
the CBE for services to literature and was knighted in 2007. His most
recent biography A Strange Eventful History (Chatto & Windus) won the James Tait Black Award in August.
Click here to find out more!
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In addition
to the Prize for Best Biography Proposal which is in its tenth year the
club has decided to award a further three prizes for biographers.
Click here for details
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