A fraudulent Rockefeller, an conned journalist, and the relationship between truth and biography are major players in Walter Kirn’s in-depth and ultimately self-aware biography of Clark Rockefeller, a man who never existed. Blood Will Out is Kirn’s story of a con-man, German immigrant -- and murderer -- Christian Gerhartsreiter, who reimagines himself as an American heir and then lands his new persona in New York’s toniest art and club circles, dazzling and befriending Kirn along the way. Kirn’s coverage reads like a thriller, and takes a brutally honest look at what it means to be a writer. [via Slate]

NYC-based and -inspired designer Isaac Mizrahi has signed on with Penguin Random House to write a memoir. In it, he’ll trace his childhood in Brooklyn, the launch of his first label when he turned fifteen, his breakthrough show in 1987 -- when he described the women he made clothes for as tough and diverse, like NYC -- and his nights spent at the iconic celebrity hangout Studio 54. Tentatively titled I.M., Mizrahi’s story will hit shelves in 2016. [via ABC News]

Biographer Justin Kaplan, whose acclaimed biographies on literary greats like Mark Twain and Walt Whitman garnered praise and a Pulitzer prize, died last week in his home in Cambridge at the age of eighty-eight. Kaplan’s achievements included knowing everything there was to know about other writers’ work: He was the editor of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, a reference work first published in 1855 and still the go-to for bona-fide writerly quotes. His great love of biographies stemmed from his reverence of the nineteenth century: “It’s just before the telephone comes in. And it means that the talking and ideas and the relationships that now disappear into nothingness over the telephone were then put into letters or diaries,” he once said. [via The New York Times]

A biopic on the legendarily ill-fated hip-hop star Tupac Shakur is taking shape, with Boyz n the Hood -- and Poetic Justice -- director John Singleton signed on to helm once again -- and currently re-drafting the script. Singleton’s take will concentrate on Tupac’s rise to platinum-level fame during the early nineties. Production is slated to begin this summer. [via The Hollywood Reporter]