A bio, short for biography, is just that – short. It’s a summation of basic facts about the author. It mentions publications, awards or successes, and current works in progress. It begins with your name and ends with web links.
“Never use never or always,” may sound like good advice, but it doesn’t apply to bios. Never, never, never write your bio in the first person bragging tense. Always write your bio in the third person. Use the pronouns “she” and “her” (him/his) to describe your accomplishments.
Be concise. Bios for anthologies are usually limited to 100 words, but only half that for my nonfiction short story, Miracle on a Train, in Christmas Miracles, an anthology by Cecil Murphey (St. Martin’s Press, October 2009). The max limit cut out all the frills, with no space for my seventeen-word final web links sentence. So, I cut my favorite “Visit my website at http://www.carrtwins.com/ for books and my blogs at http://violetsvibes.blogspot.com/ and http://violetsvibes.wordpress.com/for writing tips.” I inserted the website, the most important link, and omitted the blogs.
Violet Moore is the author of In The Right Place and Moments of Meditation and co-creator of Carr Twins & Co. (www.carrtwins.com) publishing. She is an inspirational writer and speaker and a featured contributor to an international women’s ministry website. She is Vice President of California Writer’s Club, Tri-Valley Branch.
That’s my bio in exactly fifty words.
