Writing an Author Bio?
Notes on composing an author bio (& other sorts.) Posted originally on Substack.
Published August 27, 2025
Writing a bio is an odd thing. I think frequently about peak-end fallacy and how first impressions crystallize and "every you, every me" (i.e. having different versions of yourself that come out with different people.)
I cringe at some of my own first impressions. While in the tunnel-visioned pursuit of my book deal pursuit, I frequently wondered: when is it best to meet someone? When you’re light? When you’re the most “real” version of yourself? Are you who you are most recently, most consistently, or your preferred version? (A forever question.)
Because author-me is a significant part of my essence, I suppose, but not the only one; after [redacted book process], I had the disorienting sense that anyone I’d met in the last few years didn’t know me outside of the intense confines of a singularly-motivating life dream and the crushing pressure that came with it. Last year, I was definitely insecure about coming off as too serious or too intense, which paradoxically might have intensified that impression too. People say I seem a lot lighter now after, which is a mixed thing to hear for a lot of reasons.
I'm haunted by too much knowledge in this sense—awareness of character-building strategies, how the brain basically functions as a prediction machine, and how those same instincts translate to how we perceive others in reality. (This year, I’ve also thought a lot about the line between strategizing vs. being inauthentic when controlling your own image.) I do think my interest in psychology is what allows me to (hopefully) be great at writing fiction in the first place.
Recently, I've also thought about faux first impressions of seeing or "knowing" someone online first. Within the algorithms, the order in which you see someone’s “content” might get scrambled—so you don’t follow the usual order of getting to know someone anyway. I wondered which version sticks for us if we then meet that person "in real life" later. (I say frequently that Words Like Silver and the particular analytical, emotional, or philosophical tone I strike here is a significant part of me but not the only one.)
It's all salience, I suppose. Also something I think about a lot: you're primed by context and belief and groups and similarity or dissimilarity cascades, so in many cases you decide to like or dislike someone independently of who they are, then you operate on confirmation bias thereafter. So much of any interaction is self-fulfilling prophecy.
I recently read Why We Click by Kate Murphy and How Emotions Are Made by Lisa Feldman Barrett and submitted a tentative bios for [redacted book process] and forced myself into making other blurbs, and I thought more about how your perception of me would be wildly different based on if you read my blog first, or if you read Mountain Sounds (which is quite angsty) then look to see who wrote it, or if you're poking through journalists as a public relations specialist and come across my content to connect on the career side.
Or if you meet me through the lens of a book rec, or if I'm being a wallflower at a social gathering with mutual friends, or if you encounter the day-to-day me within my routine across the island. Each version being slightly different is inevitable.
It's extremely easy for me to write my journalism bio, because that's all reading, writing, and my resume. Going beyond that for any other purpose teases out my existential side with questions of public vs. private selves, the labels we give ourselves, whether who you are is what you do, and even the generosity and necessity of allowing others to reintroduce themselves to you constantly (likely, for me, the definition of a relationship or connection at all.)
I do not like people having access to my private life, but I also detest perceived inauthenticity, so it's occasionally tricky for me to determine what's the mental line as my creative work will take on a life beyond me. In other words, I will see myself being seen by others, which always throws me for a loop. I have time to kill before then, but I feel the need to make some of those decisions now.
And if I'm given the chance to give you say three or four details about my life that prime you to make an opinion about me, what should they be? (And yes, this applies to social life too—not just authorship.)
This curiosity also totally makes sense in the context of my reading list this year, including but not limited to East of Eden, The Influential Mind, Superbloom, the upcoming Take It from Me, and hell, even Benito Cereno.
Filing people into categories is efficient and necessary or else we'd suffocate in the nuances of it all (of course all people are different people!!!!) but I still think about it anyway and the impossibility of sticking to concrete descriptors. What do you do? What are you like?
How much time can pass before you can say you know someone or don't, and how much exposure or opacity does each require?
On that note, there's also little more annoying than the sense that someone has really gotten you fundamentally wrong, but I've largely matured past the point of needing to correct this if I sense it in others. It doesn't affect my self-image to be gotten wrong even if it grates at me to initially notice, and that's a way in which I've grown.
So much of connection on any level—career, dating, reading, friendship—is luck, choice, and maybe being in an optimal mood at the beginning. I guess what I'm getting at here is that I’m so aware your first impression of someone or something often has more to do with you than about them (cue my fascination with unconscious influences) which is a lot of luck and timing.
The cure for misunderstanding then, and the resulting frustration or despair or regret there, is sometimes not to put yourself out there so you can solely go with your own definition. The reality of personhood is probably the whole "two opposing truths can exist at once" balance of that you are both how you prefer to define yourself and also how other people label or categorize you, which means occasionally wading through that dissonance and letting people get the wrong idea.
Upcoming, I have both my summer camp reunion (where I was a counselor for many years, inspiring my book) and my five-year college reunion, so I suppose it's all on my mind. Because recently, a friend from school asked me if I'd thought I'd changed a lot since college. I said yes; he said he didn’t feel like he had at all. We didn't think either way was necessarily good or bad, but the question’s been rattling inside me regardless.
The idea that we truly "know" someone even as they constantly change in front of us involves a lot of choice and maybe a dash of ignorance, which is why the answer to me has always been the Ted Lasso-style pithy quote of Walt Whitman's "be curious, not judgmental."
Essentially, I think that connections require openness to someone changing or else they're not really real, because as soon as you've crystallized the idea of someone in your head then you've gotten them wrong.
This isn’t an existential crisis, because I know where I stand on this front. (Treat people in the most generous read possible, because behaviorally, we tend to live up to that.) But it just makes me want to get my bio right, because I’ll be broadcasting a first impression to people who don’t know me, hopefully widely.
Writing my author bio is really not that serious, but it is on my mind: just a springboard for some of these questions lately.
Right now, I tailor each bio to the publication, person, or context. I'll swap my bylines frequently i.e. The Wall Street Journal is my go-to because it’s so recognizable, Cosmopolitan was my personal favorite pinch-me moment, and Lonely Planet is the most aligned with what work I love most (travel journalism.)
So I’ve historically had a few rotations of "journalism," "fiction," "dating app," "interests," whatever. Even on social media, I often feel a little out of place, squashed between the platforms’ various personalities. I don’t quite fit the standardized intellectualism of Substack or the outgoing trendiness on TikTok, but I don’t want to niche down to align with an archetype either.
I like to have a specifically private identity, even as plenty about me becomes public. But as the dreams or wants I have take on a life beyond me (arguably the point of any creative venture at all—that it becomes independent from you), I can't dictate the factors that will control what about me somebody picks up on and how they roll with it. All I can do is do my best to distill it into five sentences.
(I'm totally fine with my author bio, I think. It's just the springboard for all this conversation I've been having already.)
The Author Bio, Maybe
Grace Smith started out on the book review blog she founded at age 13—and still runs. After studying history and studio art in the Blue Ridge Mountains, she accidentally became a journalist across publications like Lonely Planet, Cosmopolitan, and The Wall Street Journal. When not reading, writing, or traveling, she’s often beelining for the closest dance studio or disappearing into nature. She currently resides in Waialua, Hawai’i, but you can find her online at her blog Words Like Silver, her social media @bygracesmith, and subscribe to her newsletter for the latest updates.
Sample Journo Bio
Grace Smith covers travel, style, entertainment, and more for publications like The Wall Street Journal, Cosmopolitan, Lonely Planet, and others. As a journalist, Grace writes through the lens of the psychology of aesthetics, pulling from scientific insights, social histories, and her studio art background to inform her analysis of what we find beautiful. Originally from Tampa, Florida, she’s since lived in Virginia, New York City, Honolulu, Park City, and Hale’iwa.
Another Bio Elsewhere
Writer & reader—if not doing either, I'm probably outside, traveling, and/or being bad at one of my many, many hobbies.
And, of course, the blog’s about page tends to be pretty accurate.
“A cognitive bias where people judge an experience based on how they felt at its peak (most intense point) and at its end, rather than evaluating the entire experience as a whole.”
