Author of *The Marginalian* (formerly *Brain Pickings*) Maria Popova is a Bulgarian-born, American-based essayist, book author, poet, and writer of literary and arts commentary and cultural criticism that has found wide appeal both for her writing and for the visual stylistics that accompany it. In 2006, she started the blog *Brain Pickings*, an online publication that she has fought to maintain advertisement-free. The blog, renamed to *The Marginalian* upon its 15th birthday in 2021, features her writing on books, the arts, philosophy, culture, and other subjects. In addition to her writing and related speaking engagements, she has served as an MIT Futures of Entertainment Fellow, as the editorial director at the higher education social network Lore, and has written for *The New York Times*, *The Atlantic*, *Wired UK*, and other publications. Since 2010, she has resided in Brooklyn, New York. She is the creator of "The Universe in Verse", a large-scale, multimedia annual celebration of science and the natural world through poetry.