Chaos, creativity, completion : new approaches to writing and ADHD / edited by Rebecca Makkai, Chloe Martinez, Lisa Van Orman Hadley.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Martinez, Chloe, editor.

Hadley, Lisa van Orman, 1979- editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Creative writing--Psychological aspects.

Creative ability--Psychological aspects.

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder in adults.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2026.

System Details:

text file PDF

Summary:

Fifteen essays that offer inspiration, encouragement, and advice from accomplished writers with ADHD. A rising number of ADHD diagnoses, particularly among adults, is not only confirmed by medical studies and mainstream reporting but also borne out across social media and elsewhere among people who'd been privately coping with persistent, often inexpressible challenges. Many of the contributors to this collection can attest to how a later-in-life diagnosis radically demystified the patterns, impulses, and impasses that had affected their lives and their writing. The essays in Chaos, Creativity, Completion reflect the ways poets, novelists, memoirists, filmmakers, and others have come to understand and engage the relationship between their ADHD and their creative tool kits. These essays consider how writers can embrace rather than mask their neurodifference, offering multiple ways of finding writing practices that work for ADHD brains--including techniques that often look quite different from traditional writing instruction. Some essays are analytical, some are reflective, and someare delightfully weird, employing humor, research, personal narrative, deep description, close reading, and experimental approaches to genre and form. Each essay also concludes with a writing prompt, providing readers with opportunities to expand their own creative toolkits. Finally, the book includes an interview with David Kessler, a licensed therapist and nationally recognized ADHD advocate, and an appendix with a glossary of helpful terms and a list of recommended resources, from books and organizations to apps and gadgets. Just as the experience of ADHD varies from person to person, so, too, do the ways those experiences can be expressed.Chaos, Creativity, Completionis a kaleidoscopic, adventurous series of takes on what writing looks like today.

Contents:

Frontmatter

A Note on the Type

Contents

Foreword / Rebecca Makkai

Introduction: We Saved You a Seat (Sitting Is Optional) / Lisa van Orman Hadley, Chloe Martinez

1 Lisa Is a Joy to Work With. She Does Not Know What Happened to Her Health Project. / Lisa van Orman Hadley

2 Fruit from Space / Teresa Dzieglewicz

3 Writing into the Wunderkammer / Doug Doug Van Gundy

4 discipline (as in metier) (as in correction) / Douglas Kearney

5 Anything I Fix My Mind To / Kwoya Fagin Maples

6 The Third Word Is Shame / Robin Black

7 Train Rumbles by at 2:22 A.M., Every Monday Morning / Allison Adelle Hedge Coke

8 Divergence as Praxis, the Accretion of Force, and Feeling Professional / Kadijah Queen

9 The End Game / Jami Nakamura Lin

10 Ghosts by the Light of My ADHD / Lawrence-Minh Bui Davis

11 Non-Standard Operating Procedure / Elizabeth Ito

12 A Glitch Is Not a Glitch / Rainie Oet

13 Outside Voices / Jennifer L. Knox

14 Finding Your Face / Emily Stoddard

15 Waking, Sleeping, Dreaming / Chloe Martinez

Afterword: On Being Neurospicy and Everything Else

Acknowledgments

Selected Resources for ADHD and Writing

An ADHD Glossary

Contributors.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Online resource; title from PDF title page (De Gruyter Brill, viewed February 24, 2026).

Other Format:

Print version: Chaos, creativity, completion.

ISBN:

9780226834948

0226834948

OCLC:

1569752171

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license