The Art of Biography Writing

Biography writing can be a fraught, delicate business – from choosing a worthy subject to ensuring a life is interesting to the reader, a biographer often has to deal with difficult relatives, conflicting stories, and embittered rivals. Their subject may be dead – or worse, infuriatingly alive. And writing memoir and autobiography can have its own set of problems.

What choices does a writer make when faced with drastically differing versions of events? And how does a biographer decide which aspects of a life remain untold?

Janine Burke interviews Stephany Steggall, Maxine Beneba Clarke and Caroline Baum as they discuss the art, the attraction and the dangers of writing a life.