About Bill Hayes

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 new book, “SWEAT: A History of Exercise,” a narrative nonfiction look at exercise from antiquity to the present, will be published by Bloomsbury in January 2022. 

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 photographs have been exhibited at the Steven Kasher Gallery and at 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 a co-editor of Dr. Sacks’ posthumously published work.  Hayes, 60, lives in New York City.