Writing for a Popular Audience: Psychologist Greg Walton on his new book Ordinary Magic

How does one translate their big ideas, navigate the world of agents and editors, and wrangle research into compelling prose? What is the experience of writing a trade book like as a scholar, from the initial concept to holding the book in your hands? Stanford Public Humanities and the Department of Psychology invites you to a lively conversation and Q&A about this process, featuring Greg Walton in conversation with Blakey Vermeule. 

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Greg Walton is the author of the new book Ordinary Magic: The Science of How We Can Achieve Big Change with Small Acts (Harmony/Penguin Random House). He is also the co-director of the Dweck-Walton Lab and a professor of psychology at Stanford University. His work has been covered in major media outlets including The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, and Los Angeles Times.

Blakey Vermeule is a professor of literature in Stanford's English department and the co-director of Stanford Public Humanities. She is the author of three books, one on eighteenth-century moral psychology and literature, one on the theory of literary characters, and one on the ancient debate between the active life and the contemplative life (co-authored with Jennifer Summit). Her current project is about the post-Freudian conception of the unconscious mind.