Bruce Feiler

Bruce Feiler is the author of seven New York Times bestsellers, including Life Is in the Transitions, the Secrets of Happy Families, and Council of Dads. His three TED Talks have been viewed more than five million times, and he teaches the TED Course How to Master Life Transitions. He is a fellow at the Stanford Computational Psychology and Well-Being Lab, which is writing an AI large language model based on his work.

Bruce’s latest book, A TIME TO GATHER: How Ritual Created the World — and How It Can Save Us, describes his 50,000-mile journey to 16 countries on six continents chronicling the astonishing rise of reinvented life rituals around the world. His New York Times Opinion essay inspired by the book, This Is the Antidote to the Lonely Life of Screens, was a #1 most emailed article. Kirkus, in a starred review, praised the book as “peppy, hopeful, and laced with humor… An inspiring and thought-provoking look at how ceremony helps us thrive.”

Employing a firsthand approach to his work, Bruce is known for living the experiences he writes about. His work combines timeless wisdom with timely knowledge to encourage people to live with more meaning, passion, and joy. Life Is in the Transitions describes his journey across America, collecting hundreds of life stories, exploring how we can navigate life’s growing number of life transitions with purpose and skill. The Secrets of Happy Families collects best practices from some of the country’s most creative minds. Both were top 10 New York Times bestsellers.

A longtime columnist for the New York Times, Bruce now writes the popular newsletter The Nonlinear Life. He has appeared in numerous publications, including The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, and Gourmet, where he won three James Beard Awards.

A native of Savannah, Georgia, Bruce lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Linda Rottenberg, and their identical twin daughters.