Constellating Wonder

At the dawn of her twenties, Maria Popova began keeping a small personal record of her marginalia on the search for meaning. On October 23, 2006, she began sharing it in an office email to seven colleagues at one of the four jobs she held to pay her way through college. They in turn began sharing it with friends, who began sharing it with friends. The fractal grew and, within a few years, the Library of Congress included it in its permanent digital archive of culturally valuable materials.

It changed shape (the essays grew longer, the questions deeper) and name (Brain Pickings became The Marginalian) but continued beating with the same heart, reckoning with the ongoing bewilderment of being alive — sometimes through science and philosophy, sometimes through poetry and children's books, always through the lens of wonder. Without staff, without advertising, it has remained a thoroughly one-woman labor of love beloved by millions.

Maria Popova thinks and writes about our search for meaning, lensed sometimes through science and philosophy, sometimes through poetry and children's books, always through wonder. She is the creator of The Marginalian (born in 2006 under the name Brain Pickings).

Her books and projects include:
- Traversal
- The Universe in Verse
- Figuring
- The Coziest Place on the Moon
- An Almanac of Birds: 100 Divinations for Uncertain Days.