Freedom fighting, writing, and microdosing | Ayelet Waldman & Michael Chabon | Big Think Edge

Freedom Fighting, Writing, and Microdosing
The Days and Nights of Ayelet Waldman and Michael Chabon

Moderated by Maria Konnikova

Step inside the minds of two of the most exciting and dynamic writers of our times. In this special Big Think Live session, psychologist, New York Times best-selling author, and poker pro Maria Konnikova will lead a conversation with married writers Ayelet Waldman and Michael Chabon. Waldman and Chabon will discuss how they coach one another to new strengths, 100 years of landmark ACLU cases (the subject of their latest book project), Ayelet’s experiences with LSD microdosing therapy, plus anything you’d like to know—just ask your questions during the audience Q&A!

Ayelet Waldman is the author of A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life, the novels Love and Treasure, Red Hook Road, Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, and Daughter’s Keeper, as well as of the essay collection Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace and the Mommy-Track Mystery series. She is the editor of Inside This Place, Not of It: Narratives from Women’s Prisons, Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation, and recently of Fight of the Century: Writers Reflect on 100 Years of Landmark ACLU Cases. Waldman was a federal public defender and an adjunct professor at the UC Berkeley Law where she developed and taught a course on the legal implications of the war on drugs.

Michael Chabon is a Pulitzer-winning writer whose career has made for unforgettable and original works in not only literature, but also in stage, film, television, graphic novels, young adult and children’s publishing, and musical lyrics. Most recently, Chabon and his wife, Ayelet Waldman, edited an anthology in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the American Civil Liberties Union titled Fight of the Century: Writers Reflect on 100 Years of Landmark ACLU Cases. In 2019, Chabon co-wrote (with Ayelet Waldman and Susannah Grant) Unbelievable, a critically lauded limited series on Netflix. Chabon also scripted Star Trek Discovery: Calypso, and is executive producer, writer, and showrunner for the Star Trek series titled Star Trek: Picard starring Patrick Stewart. Chabon and Waldman are currently adapting his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay for a limited series on Showtime.

Maria Konnikova is the author of two New York Times bestsellers: The Confidence Game, winner of the 2016 Robert P. Balles Prize in Critical Thinking, and Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes, an Anthony and Agatha Award finalist. Her new book, The Biggest Bluff, will be out from Penguin Press on June 23, 2020. While researching The Biggest Bluff, Konnikova became an international poker champion and the winner of over $300,000 in tournament earnings—and inadvertently turned into a professional poker player. She is a regular contributing writer for The New Yorker, and her writing has been featured in Best American Science and Nature Writing and has been translated into over twenty languages. Maria also hosts the podcast The Grift from Panoply Media, a show that explores con artists and the lives they ruin, and is currently a visiting fellow at NYU’s School of Journalism. She graduated from Harvard University and received her PhD in psychology from Columbia University.
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