T.J. Stiles has won the Biographers International Organization’s 2026 BIO Award, which “honors an individual who has advanced the art and craft of biography.”
Stiles, a Minnesota native, was educated at Carleton College and Columbia University, and worked for Oxford University Press before making his literary debut in 2002 with Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War. He followed that up seven years later with The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt, which won the Pulitzer Prize for biography and the National Book Award for nonfiction.
In 2015, he published Custer’s Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America; the book won the Pulitzer Prize for history and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for biography. According to his website, he is currently at work on a biography of former President Theodore Roosevelt.
Kathleen Stone, chair of the BIO Award committee, said, “As an author, he is dedicated to exploring history through the stories of individual lives. His innovative choice of subjects covers a wide range, from General George Custer to Jesse James to Cornelius Vanderbilt, thereby enlarging our understanding of our history.”
The BIO Award was established in 2010. Previous winners include Robert Caro, Ron Chernow, Stacy Schiff, Claire Tomalin, Hermione Lee, Kitty Kelley, and Kai Bird.
Stiles will receive the award at BIO’s annual conference in New York on May 29, where he will deliver the keynote address.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
