The Writer's Biography: 
Help Readers Get To Know You Quickly

Award-winning writer Kathy Widenhouse has helped hundreds of nonprofits and writers produce successful content and has gained 600K+ views for her writing tutorials. She is the author of 9 books. See more of Kathy’s content here.

An online devotional for writers

A Word From The Word

I have called you by name; you are mine. (Isaiah 43:1, NLT)

A Word For Writers

Editors tell us to have a full writer’s biography ready to go and a short, quick one on hand, too. You use your short version on blog posts, at the end of articles, and on the back jacket of your book.

The idea of a short writer’s bio is thousands of years old. For instance, we know quite a bit about 35 writers in the Bible, thanks to what they’ve each told us in their one-liner biographies. They offer a helpful model to follow by giving us ...

Name and family: Today you introduce yourself with your first and last name, but in Bible times people identified themselves by their fathers, as did Nehemiah: “These are the memoirs of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah.” (Nehemiah 1:1, NLT) 

Location: You use your bio to tell readers where you live (both in the real world and online.) So did the writers during Bible times: “These are the words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, one of the priests from the town of Anathoth in the land of Benjamin. “(Jeremiah 1:1, NLT)

Qualifications: A bio explains why a writer speaks with authority. Solomon revealed his credentials in Ecclesiastes 1:1: “These are the words of the Teacher, King David’s son, who ruled in Jerusalem.” Paul opened the Letter to the Romans by explaining his role in God’s kingdom and qualifications: “This letter is from Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, chosen by God to be an apostle and sent out to preach his Good News.” (Romans 1:1, NLT) 

Your readers can learn a great deal about you from a simple one-line biography. 

A Wise Word

A one-line biography lets readers get to know you quickly.

A Word To Pray

Heavenly Father,

You know me by name. Show me how to explain who I am to my readers in a concise way so they can know me, too.

In Jesus’s name, Amen.

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