With some help from my editor father, I have a good draft of my bio for the Catalan edition of my book. If anyone can weigh in, I would be very grateful for feedback. Remember that the audience is Catalan-speaking and, obviously, is children.
Virginia Zimmerman is an American who loves Catalunya. She married into a Catalan family and spends as much time as possible in and around Barcelona. Her favorite place in the whole world is Sa Tuna on the Costa Brava. She currently lives in Lewisburg, a small town in Pennsylvania.
She and her husband have three children, who got to attend a Catalan school in Barcelona for several months, an experience that the whole family found wonderfully enriching. They are the only family in Lewisburg who speak any Catalan, and they like to use it as a secret language whenever they need one.
Virginia has been fascinated by literature since she began reading, and now she both writes it and teaches it at the university level. She believes that reading is the best way to become a writer — or, for that matter, a person.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Monday, December 5, 2011
Author Biographies
I've been asked to write my biography for the book jacket of the Catalan edition of my novel, A Sketch in Time. This has prompted me to think about what I want out of the biographies of authors when I read their books, and the truth is that I don't read the bios to learn more about the authors. I usually read them because I've come to the end of the story, and I want more. I'm so desperate for more that I read every printed word in the book, including the copyright page and the tiny print that identifies the font in which the text is printed. The most satisfying bios are the ones that feel like they add to the story in some way.
Perhaps the bio offers a glimpse of the creative mind that generated the book, or perhaps it reveals that the author, in some way, really inhabits the book's secondary world. Maybe it makes me believe in the story in a new way. Maybe it's just a few more words written in a voice that's become familiar.
What do you like to see in an author bio?
Perhaps the bio offers a glimpse of the creative mind that generated the book, or perhaps it reveals that the author, in some way, really inhabits the book's secondary world. Maybe it makes me believe in the story in a new way. Maybe it's just a few more words written in a voice that's become familiar.
What do you like to see in an author bio?
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