The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in nonfiction, Bill Hayes is a frequent contributor to the New York Times and the author of four books: Sleep Demons; Five Quarts; The Anatomist; and Insomniac City: New York, Oliver Sacks, and Me. His writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Review of Books, the New York Times “T” Style Magazine, BuzzFeed, and The Guardian.
Hayes is also a photographer, with credits including The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and the New York Times. His portraits of his partner, the late Oliver Sacks, appear in the volume of Dr. Sacks’s suite of final essays Gratitude. A collection of his street photography, How New York Breaks Your Heart, was recently published by Bloomsbury. His photography is represented by the Steven Kasher Gallery, where the first exhibition of his photographs was held in early 2018. His work was also included in “The Photography Show,” presented by The Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD), New York City.
Hayes has lectured at NYU, UCSF, and University of Virginia, and has appeared at the Sydney Writers Festival, the 92nd Street Y, the Times of India (Mumbai) LitFest, and other venues. He serves as the Creative Director of the Oliver Sacks Foundation and as a co-editor of Dr. Sacks’ posthumously published work (Gratitude and The River of Consciousness). Hayes, 57, lives in New York City and is currently at work on a book in which he explores the history of exercise (Bloomsbury, 2020).