Monday, May 6, 2013

You know you're Southern if...

...you're worried about your mother reading your author's bio!

"Just What Will People Think?" is a cute article by Ronda Rich, the "Dixie Diva," in the Albany Herald. Ms. Rich talks about a brutally honest author's bio she once read...

This got me to thinking, what's the best tone for an author's bio? Scholarly? Self congratulatory? You want to talk about all your accomplishments and how interesting you are, but at the same time you don't want to seem like you're boasting! Any ideas??

2 comments:

Marianne Wheelaghan said...

Hey Louisa, an excellent question because as an author I am asked time and time again for a biography about myself and I find it really tricky –not least because I hate writing about myself. I think it depends on what the biography is for. If it's for one of my books, I tend to be brief - hopefully it will give the reader a bit of an idea of who I am, but I don't add more because I am assuming the reader is more interested in the book and the writing. If a biography is needed say for a library talk or an event, I try to make it a bit more chatty, to give more of an impression of the person they're going to hear speak. If the talk is at a University,
I tend to make the biography more formal and academic. I wonder what others do?

Louisa said...

Hi Marianne, thanks for sharing your experience! It makes sense that you would have several different bios for different venues. I always just think of the back-cover bio and tend to forget that authors need to introduce themselves in a variety of situations!