the waterfront. >> let me say one thing about josephine baker. a dense as well as virginia woolf and that i am as impressive and intellectual as josephine baker. but they are both very meaningful to me commando think you can probably immediately see why a very funny dancer is to somebody who it is me. can you dislike me and said? >> when i was 12 years old i started to read the latter fee of peter the great because i was absolutely power mad as a child and wanted to be a general. the military academy which absolutely hated and immediately quit. that was the end of my power madness. anyway, i got a chance for a biography, but i could see how hard it was to write. years went by, and my favorite editor, bill white it, who is related to the white heads of key west, anyway, he asked me if i would -- if i knew anyone who could write a biography about ginnie. i said, well, you mean to say there isn't a put it? oh, i'll do it. and i thought it would take like three years to do. it took seven. i think a lot of people have talked about different kinds of b

despite purposes here, phyllis is the author of the book on virginia woolf, the biography of josephine baker and that a literary classic tale. edmund is the author among many other books and various forms, one vote -- wonderful novelist and essayist, beautifully compact biographies. brenda is the author of books on amelie dickenson, hawthorne, gertrude on the austin. j., the triad of faulkner and steinbeck. that led to begin with phyllis who is next to me. what do you see as having draw new to these particular subjects? >> okay. i'd like to go back, if i may, little earlier considerably earlier to one i'm in grade school even to explain my rather simple notion about why the person writes a biography. when i was in grade school i think it must have been, i don't know, seventh or eighth grade. therefore i was not attend, i don't know. ahead to write. [laughter] ahead to rebel we call the book report about a biography of an admirable woman so i went to the library. there were only two biographies of women in the entire library as far as i could see. one was eleanor roosevelt and the other was t