Takes years to do it, too. So we try to subsidize good working biographers. I mention this because the deadline for the next years fellowship is coming up january 6, so if any of you are biographers have no of people who would love to do a biography, go on our website. George packer is a staff writer at the atlantic and the author of the unwinding and enter history of new america which is the winner of the 2013 National Book award. His other nonfiction books include the assassin date american iraq a finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize and blood of the liberals, when of the 2001 robert f. Kennedy book award. Hes also the authohe is also to novels and a play, betrayed and the editor of a two volume edition of the essays of george orwell. Hes really one of the countries best working journalists today. With that introduction, im going to sit down and begin to have a conversation with George Packer and we will talk for about 30 minutes, 20, 25 minutes and then we will have time for questio
Hello, everybody. Wow a treat we have. I am so honored to introduce our next author. Shes an elegant and an exciting writer. Shes the kind of person that writers just adore. Stacy schiff. To boy, does she know how pick a good topic. Unbelievable. Interestedtewart was cleopatra. She somehow brought to life cleopatra in a way that nobody had. By the way, cleopatra, a lot of long time. Her for a of course, shes won so many prizes, its fairly ridiculous. Child she won the writing about for the wife of vladimir she was runner up for the pulitzer even earlier, in 1995. And you comes up here see how young she is, its super annoying for the rest of us writers. Who knows how to write a this about , said stacy. Gunpoint, ced to at stacy schiff would be incapable writing a dull page or a lame entence, and david mccullah, you know that guy that just always writes best sellers, just stacy, his most recent, wright brothers, i love what he said about her. History in the hands of stacy full of invaria
American revolution. Host author stacy schiff, besides the fact you have written about them, what do ben franklin, the witches of statement wishes of salem, cleopatra have in common . Stacy off the top of my head, they are people and moments that change our world. People that leave the world different to the one they had been born, and i think thats what im looking for any a subject. Some subject which resonates for me on a personal level because biography is kind of a marriage. But also where you feel theres a shift in time, a shift in space. In cleopatras case, the world came crashing down with her death and the roman empire begins. The salem witch trials, for better or worse, as a sense of here is where you dont want to go and what you dont want to do, there is an antimessage in a way. In each of these i could make a case it is a world changing moment and i come to each of them what they certain set of questions that start to obsess me. Those questions write themselves into the book
The fantastic conversation were all going have with our finalists tonight and. I know were here to hear them talk. Im going to be as brief as possible and, introducing them so we can turn it over to them. And many of them dont really need. A introduction. We have with us stacy shift who written countless biographies. Cleopatra, benjamin franklin, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and a George Washington book prize winner. And i know im probably skipping a couple of biographies in there as well. Fred kaplan, who has also written an enormous number of biographies, i couldnt believe it. I mean ive familiar with several of them, and i kept looking for your list. And i couldnt believe i mean, mark twain, charles dickens, henry james, abraham lincoln, John Quincy Adams, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. I mean, missing a lot of people, too, arent i. Well. I have to confess. Im not missing them anymore. For right. And he is. And here tonight to talk about Thomas Jefferson, whos he has recently writte
The fantastic conversation were all going have with our finalists tonight and. I know were here to hear them talk. Im going to be as brief as possible and, introducing them so we can turn it over to them. And many of them dont really need. A introduction. We have with us stacy shift who written countless biographies. Cleopatra, benjamin franklin, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and a George Washington book prize winner. And i know im probably skipping a couple of biographies in there as well. Fred kaplan, who has also written an enormous number of biographies, i couldnt believe it. I mean ive familiar with several of them, and i kept looking for your list. And i couldnt believe i mean, mark twain, charles dickens, henry james, abraham lincoln, John Quincy Adams, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. I mean, missing a lot of people, too, arent i. Well. I have to confess. Im not missing them anymore. For right. And he is. And here tonight to talk about Thomas Jefferson, whos he has recently writte