Brooklyn Heights author Ron Chernow receives Biography Award
Brooklyn BookBeat
Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Ron Chernow was honored by his peers this weekend and in turn shared a few tips about his craft.
Chernow, a Brooklyn Heights resident, received the BIO award from the Biographers International Organization, a nonprofit established in 2010. During a lunchtime gathering Saturday at the Roosevelt Hotel in midtown Manhattan, Chernow spoke about some of his most famous subjects, from John D. Rockefeller to George Washington, and how their public reputations often concealed a far more interesting private person.
“Once upon a time, biography was a very formal, straight-laced affair,” said Chernow, a Pulitzer winner in 2011 for his Washington biography. “But nowadays we all expect the enterprising biographer to ferret out that hidden self.”