Thursday 5 August 2010

Writing Bios

I’ve just had to write a 100 word bio to accompany an article I’m sending to a peer-reviewed journal. Every time you have to write a bio you should really provide a fresh one. It needs to some extent to be customised to what you are writing. For instance, in this latest one of mine, pasted below, I say first that I am a Lecturer in English and Creative Writing because the workshop I’m describing I gave in that role. Then I mentioned what I write: this seems important as I’m submitting the article to a publication called Writing in Education. I emphasize my school work as this is relevant to the project I describe. I put something about my latest initiative last. That possibly needs the most attention.
Sample bio reads therefore:
“Gill James is a lecturer in English and Creative Writing at the University of Salford. She writes fiction and educational materials for children and young adults and short stories for adults. Each year she conducts an extensive programme of school visits, often offering her Build a Book in a Day workshop. The Build a Book in Two Days workshop is now becoming a regular part of the Aimhigher Salford Young People’s University programme. She is also the founder of the Creative Café project and is currently launching the magazine CaféLit in association with this.”
I guess next week it will be different again. I’ll have grown. The bio itself will be associated with a different project. There is definitely an art to bio writing.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

And an art I need to work on! Thanks for posting this. I will go off now and practice writing my own bio.