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About Gretchen Rubin

A few years ago, Gretchen had an epiphany on the cross-town bus. She asked herself, “What do I want from life, anyway?” and thought, “I want to be happy”—but I never spent any time thinking about happiness. “I should do a happiness project!” she realized. And so she has.

Gretchen's happiness project has convinced her that it’s possible to be happier by taking small, concrete steps in your daily life. In her book and daily blog, she writes about what she has learned as she's test-driven the wisdom of the ages, the current scientific studies, and the lessons from popular culture. Plutarch, Samuel Johnson, Benjamin Franklin, St. Thérèse, the Dalai Lama, Oprah, Martin Seligman…she covers it all.

Every Wednesday, she posts a list of tips about how to be happier; every Friday, she proposes a resolution for your happiness project; every Sunday, she posts a quotation to get you thinking more deeply about happiness. Throughout the week, she writes about her adventures as she works to be happier.

More than 55,000 people have signed up to get her free monthly newsletter, which features highlights from the blog and Facebook Page, and more than 20,000 get the Moment of Happiness, a daily email with a happiness quotation. She is also a columnist for Good Housekeeping. Gretchen feels lucky to be connected in so many ways to people who share her interest in happiness.

Gretchen is a bestselling writer who has published four books and written three unpublished novels—which are safely locked in a drawer. Before turning to writing, she started out in law. At Yale Law School, she was editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal, and she was clerking for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor when she realized that she really wanted to be a writer.

Raised in Kansas City, she lives in New York City with her husband and two young daughters. Her only hobbies are reading and writing—and helping other people to clean out their closets. Gretchen is left-handed, hopeless at sports, tone-deaf, a constant hair-twister, and afraid to drive. She talks to her parents and sister all the time, and she lives around the corner from her in-laws.