The author and critic Ruth Franklin has a terrific article about Shirley Jackson in New York Magazine (it's a selection from her new book, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life,
Henri Poincaré was one of the most astute observers of the relationship between the conscious and subsconcious mind in creative work, and he developed a pretty high degree of
This week I reviewed the dust jacket for REST. I've always liked the book's cover, with its sling chair, but the whole package just looks terrific. We were lucky to
One of the enduring myths of creativity is that creative people who treat their families badly do so because the weight of their genius keeps them from being good spouses and
Sleep, as I say in my book, is the original deliberate rest, an activity that is both natural, and something we can learn to do better. One reason
When I was researching REST, I discovered that one of the best sources for material on writer's routines was The Paris Review. (I've posted quotes from other Paris
The latest issue of Scientific American Mind has an interview with me ("Q&A: Why a Rested Brain Is More Creative") about REST and its big ideas. Ferris
In her essay on the meaning of leisure, Washington Post editor Christine Emba notes that Uber recently announced that it would debut self-driving cars in Pittsburgh later this fall. This, she argues, marks another step
People find old postcards of sling chairs and send them to you. This is one from the 1980s that an aunt just found, scanned, and sent me. The chair from
This is the cover of REST. I wasn’t involved in the design: authors usually aren’t, unless they have design backgrounds, otherwise they’re a lot more likely to mess