Identifying his writing as “A vice that I continue to indulge in,” author Fred Kaplan shared a bit of his own biography with those who attended his Oct. 21 talk at the Community Center.

The Boothbay resident has explored the lives of several well-known figures, among them Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, Gore Vidal, Henry James and Charles Dickens.

He is Distinguished Professor of English Literature at Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and has held fellowships from the Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts. Kaplan also was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

He said his steps into a career as a writer began when he was a college professor. His writing initially was for others in his profession but he started to write biographies and “I became successful at writing biographies that were published.”

Not that his early days as an author were easy. As Kaplan explained to the laughing audience, “Every book you write is like a fire hydrant and any dog is entitled to come along.” Fortunately for his readers, he persevered and he described his early rejection letters as “wonderfully encouraging.”

“My dominant interest was people.” He found he had an interest in history and facts so he decided to write about people.

Kaplan said each of his biographies takes about five years to write, given the amount of material and the research involved. He chooses subjects who have an emotional resonance and he said the subject is always a writer – even if it’s a president.

That is the distinction he brings to his biographies. “I don’t write a historian’s biography, I try to get to the inner life of the subject through the words they have written.”

Kaplan described his process as a mix of “instinct, acts of faith and logical exploration.” With Lincoln, for example, Kaplan’s exploration led him to understand Lincoln was “both a national leader and a genius with language.” A quote from the book explains that the 16th president “became what his language made him.”

During a question and answer period following his talk, Kaplan said he doesn’t have a favorite among his books. Explaining he chooses a subject when he feels he has something distinctive to say, he encouraged everyone to “cherish that little bit that makes you unique and keep it for as long as you can.”