Problems in contemporaneous, or "real time", biography share much in common with those faced by biographers of the dead but often in heightened forms and with higher stakes. The writers of contemporaneous biography might be characterised as frontline field historians cutting a path forward for an infinitely long line of historians coming behind them. NCB doctoral student, Chris Wallace, will discuss these issues in relation to her thesis on contemporaneous 20th century political biography. Wallace is the author of four books including a biography of Germaine Greer. Her most recent publication is "Standing up to P" in the "Women and Power" edition of Griffith Review, no 40, April 2013.