Joshua Wolf Shenk is the editor-in-chief of The Believer and executive and artistic director of the Beverly Rogers, Carol C. Harter Black Mountain Institute. He is also an essayist and author, most recently, of Powers of Two: How Relationships Drive Creativity. His Atlantic cover stories include “What Makes Us Happy?” about the psychiatrist George Vaillant and the “Harvard happiness study.” He’s published in Harper’s, The New Yorker, The New York Times, GQ, VQR, The Nation, Riverteeth, and the anthology Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression (edited by Nell Casey). His first book, Lincoln’s Melancholy, was a best book of 2005 by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlanta-Journal Constitution. He is a longtime storyteller and founding advisor for The Moth, and appears in its anthology Occasional Magic: The Art and Craft of Storytelling.
