A couple of years ago, I joined a large online group of playwrights created to support one another’s work by holding two month-long “binges” each year, during which everyone attempts to make at least one step forward in their writing career each day for 30 days. We are currently half-way through one of those months.

Originally, the goal was to submit a play to at least one theater company or playwrights festival each day, but in recent years, the definition of the group has changed a bit. Now, in addition to submitting to various opportunities and sharing those opps with the rest of the group, we are encouraged to spend time marketing ourselves as writers. Regular “prompts” are given, with suggestions of small actions that can be taken, things like reaching out to directors we’ve worked with in the past to share recent successes, or to update a website, or – and this is what I want to talk about right now – take a look at our professional bios and make any changes that seem prudent or appropriate.

I am someone who especially needs this prompt.

I have been very bad at updating my biography. It’s important because you never know when someone will ask for it. Applying for a fellowship to a writing retreat or conference, for example, routinely includes the step of submitting a bio. Should a play land a production, the company putting on your show will likely ask for your bio to include in the program. I was recently asked to provide a current bio for a hosting gig I will have at a movie theater, where I will be introducing a film and conducting the post-film interview with a special guest.

I used to have a standard bio I would immediately cut and paste when asked for it, but these days, I slow down and give the thing a read-through with fresh (in other words, “older”) eyes. It can be a humbling experience to read a bio you wrote two or five or ten years ago. The one I recently re-worked was so LONG, and so eager to please, I thought upon reading it for the first time in years. It read, to me, like it was written by someone who didn’t trust their own history and experience enough. It felt a little “desperate,” as if the goal was to convince someone of something about me rather than simply provide the unvarnished facts and trust people to come to the right conclusion about me from such information.

Of course, this is how I always feel when reexamining a previously written bio. You know that famous illustration of human evolution, showing our development, in specific stages, from primate to “modern man”?
That’s what if feels like to read through the various, ever-shifting biographies I’ve written over the last few decades. It can be daunting. It can be embarrassing.

But that doesn’t matter.

In the same way that we playwrights ought to always be working on our craft, we should always be working on our biographies. Because as we change and grown and age and improve, our understanding of what we’ve experienced, and which parts are more important than other parts, also develops and improves.

So regardless of my discomfort, I’ve decided to tackle my own bio once again. Within a few days, it should be up on this website, replacing the previous one. Will it be better than that last one, and the one before that? I certainly hope so. That’s the whole point, isn’t it?