In a world overloaded with 140-character tweets, it sometimes seems like the patient art of the long biography could become obsolete. Instead of complaining, one biographer took her subject straight to Twitter.

Today’s guest on the Morning Media Menu (MP3 link)was Marion Meade, the critically acclaimed biographer of Dorothy Parker, Woody Allen, and Buster Keaton. She spoke about her new biography: Lonelyhearts: The Screwball World of Nathanael West and Eileen McKenney. During the interview, she talked about how she created a Twitter page for the dead novelist, wrote her biography proposal, and built a career as a biographer.

Follow this MP3 link to listen.

Here’s an excerpt about her Twitter page for the author: “I was looking for a way for people to remember West. So last year around June, he opened a Twitter account. He’s been Twittering ever since from his current location… in Mount Zion Cemetery [in Queens] … A lot of publishing people followed him because they got the joke. But a lot of people followed him who didn’t get the joke…I think he would have thought it was a lot of fun and crazy. He loved things that were crazy.”

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PEN USA, the West Coast arm of the international PEN organization, has announced that Elmore Leonard (pictured) has won their 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award. He joins an illustrious crew that includes: Woody Allen, Ray Bradbury, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Betty Friedan.

The awards ceremony will be held in Beverly Hills on December 2, and will celebrate a number of other authors. Each winner will receive a $1,000 cash prize: The fiction award will go to Kim Barnes for “A Country Called Home,” the creative nonfiction will go to Steve Lopez for “The Soloist,” the research nonfiction award will go to Leslie T. Chang for “Factory Girls,” and finally, the screenplay award will go to Dustin Lance Black for “Milk.”

Here’s more from the release: “In a career spanning 60 years, Leonard has published 43 novels and numerous short stories, creating a distinct literary style that has delighted readers and influenced a new generation of writers. Books like Swag, LaBrava, Freaky Deaky, and Tishomingo Blues are not only classics of the crime genre, but some of the best writing of the last half century.”