Bonnie Friedman is the author of the bestselling, widely anthologized Writing Past Dark: Envy, Fear, Distraction, and Other Dilemmas in the Writer’s Life, named one of the best books on writing by The Center for Fiction and Poets & Writers. She is also the author of the memoirs The Thief of Happiness and Surrendering Oz, longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay.

She has contributed essays to The New York Times Book Review, Ploughshares, AGNI, The American Scholar, and Lithub, among other places, and four of her essays have been selected as Notable in The Best American Essays. Her work has been selected for inclusion in The Best American Movie Writing, The Best Buddhist Writing, The Best Spiritual Writing, and The Best Writing on Writing. Her first novel, Don’t Stop, was published in April 2026.