Amy Biancolli

Memoirist, musical biographer and journalist Amy Biancolli is currently an arts writer and columnist for the Albany (NY) Times Union (www.timesunion.com), where she previously worked from 1992-2000. From 2004-2012 she served as film critic for the Houston Chronicle, where her reviews, published around the country, won her the 2007 Comment and Criticism Award from the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors Association.

She is the author of three books: "Figuring Shit Out: Love, Laughter, Suicide and Survival," a memoir of the year following her husband's suicide; "Fritz Kreisler: Love's Sorrow, Love's Joy," a biography of the violinist-composer; and "House of Holy Fools: A Family Portrait in Six Cracked Parts," a memoir of her late, great childhood family, which earned her Albany Author of the Year in 2004.

She also wrote a play, "Kreisler's Long Sleep," which had a staged reading at the Capital Repertory Theatre in Albany. A graduate of Hamilton College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she blogs regularly at figuringshitout.net.