Appropriately, this book would not have been possible without the support and insight of several brilliant women. The first was my wife, Rebecca, who read every version of the manuscript, offered crucial encouragement in its early stages, and provided detailed, articulate feedback on later drafts. As an artist who has long had to juggle her creative work with a day job, she was both an inspiration and an ideal reader for this book, and her thoughtful queries and suggestions immeasurably improved it.
Neither this book nor its predecessor would exist without my agent, Meg Thompson, who first recognized that my Daily Routines blog had book potential, who found an ideal home for that book at Knopf, and who has skillfully and cheerfully steered me through the publishing business ever since. I would also like to thank her colleague Sandy Hodgman, who has facilitated foreign editions of my work with dedication and aplomb.
At Knopf, Victoria Wilson brought more than forty-five years of publishing experience to bear on this book. Her guidance on the first Daily Rituals implicitly shaped the format of this volume, and she suggested many names for me to investigate here, including a number of underrecognized women whose biographies yielded rich material. Her assistant, Marc Jaffee, was an indispensable help throughout, and their colleagues at Knopf were exceptional. I’m especially grateful to the jacket designer, Jason Booher; the text designer, Maggie Hinders; the production editor, Kathleen Fridella; the copy editor, Amy Brosey-Láncošová; and my publicist, Kathryn Zuckerman. At Picador, Sophie Jonathan supplied an additional layer of editorial oversight, providing careful line edits and general encouragement. This book was originally conceived as a Vintage Short, and I owe a debt of gratitude to Maria Goldverg for her early support of the project.
One of my goals with this book was to include more contemporary voices, and I am grateful to the twenty women who took time out of their busy schedules to talk to me (or email with me) about their work habits: Isabel Allende, Charlotte Bray, Renee Cox, Petah Coyne, Hayden Dunham, Nikki Giovanni, Maggi Hambling, Sheila Heti, Joan Jonas, Miranda July, Josephine Meckseper, Julie Mehretu, Marilyn Minter, Meredith Monk, Maggie Nelson, Catherine Opie, Carolee Schneemann, Rachel Whiteread, Julia Wolfe, and Andrea Zittel. For their help arranging these interviews, I would also like to thank Chandra Ramirez, Danielle Wu at Galerie Lelong, Virginia C. Fowler at Virginia Tech, Hugh Monk, Emily Bates at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, Shu Ming Lim and Laura Lupton at Andrea Rosen Gallery, Katie Korns at Meckseper Studio, Sarah Rentz at Julie Mehretu Studio, Genevieve Lowe at Marilyn Minter Studio, Peter Sciscioli and Kirstin Kapustik at the House Foundation for the Arts, Heather Rasmussen at Catherine Opie Studio, Lilah Dougherty, Lisa Varghese at Luhring Augustine, Hazel Willis, Amanda Ameer and Becky Fradkin at First Chair Promotion, and Ben Thornborough at Regen Projects.
Like the first Daily Rituals, this book is very much a work of assemblage, with material drawn from published interviews, biographies, magazine profiles, diaries, and letters; I could never have compiled it without the incredible reporting and research of the scholars, journalists, editors, and translators whose work I drew upon. I also could not have done it without the resources of the Los Angeles Public Library, whose staff ferried hundreds of books to and from my local branch library. Additional research was done at the UCLA Library, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the New York Public Library. The majority of this book was written in a former Masonic lodge that has been converted into artists’ studios; my gratitude to Nathalie Dierickx and Lisa Raymond for providing an ideal space for creative work. Further gratitude to Anne Thompson for many productive conversations about the book and much else.
For their help tracking down photographs of Edna St. Vincent Millay, special thanks to Holly Peppe, Millay’s literary executor; Mark O’Berski at the Edna St. Vincent Millay Society; and Barbara Bair and Bruce Kirby at the Library of Congress. Many others helped with image licensing and text permissions for this book—my sincere thanks to them all. Three books of interviews proved particularly important in my research: Eleanor Munro’s Originals: American Women Artists, Cindy Nemser’s Art Talk, and Claudia Tate’s Black Women Writers at Work. I’m grateful to Georges Borchardt, Inc., Cindy Nemser, Read Hubbard, and Jerome Lindsey for allowing me to publish excerpts from these groundbreaking works.
After the first Daily Rituals was published, many people helped bring it to a wider audience. There’s not room here for me to mention them all, but I would like to especially thank John Swansburg for inviting me to blog about the book on Slate, Tim Ferriss for publishing the audiobook edition, and Brittany Morrongiello, formerly of Knopf’s publicity department, for being a tremendous support during the book launch. The late Noah Klersfeld was one of the original book’s earliest and most enthusiastic supporters and I’m so sad that he’s not here to read the sequel.
When I was twenty-five, Pennell Whitney encouraged me to move from Nashville to New York—and, crucially, provided me with a place to live for the several months it took me to get established there. Although I have since left the city, I now see that move as the decisive pivot of my life; I’m sure neither of these books would have happened without her intervention at that important moment.
Finally, I would like to thank my mother, my father, my stepmother, and my brother for their lifelong love and support; my mother-on-law, Toni, for being the book’s unofficial Pacific Northwest ambassador; and the rest of my family and friends for their forbearance, generosity, and goodwill.