The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in nonfiction, Bill Hayes is a frequent contributor to the New York Times and the author of seven books, including Sleep Demons; Five Quarts; The Anatomist; Insomniac City; and How We Live Now: Scenes from the Pandemic. His writing has also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Review of Books, the New York Times “T” Style Magazine, BuzzFeed, and The Guardian.
His most recent book, “SWEAT: A History of Exercise,” a narrative nonfiction look at exercise from antiquity to the present, is available now wherever books are sold.
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 published in 2018 by Bloomsbury. His photographs are available for sale as limited edition prints exclusively by CLAMP art gallery in New York City. See print ordering info here.
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 a co-editor of Dr. Sacks’ posthumously published work. Hayes, 64, lives in New York.