Eric Maisel was born in the Bronx, New York, where he lived until the age of 5. He grew up in Brooklyn, attended Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, and briefly attended Brooklyn College. After serving in the Army from 1965 – 1968 he attended Oregon State University and the University of Oregon, where he received a B.S. in philosophy.
Dr. Maisel subsequently lived in Boston, New York and San Francisco and traveled extensively in Europe, spending time in London, Dublin and Budapest. He earned a master’s degree in creative writing from San Francisco State University while ghostwriting mysteries and nonfiction and self-publishing fiction. In the ’80s he returned to school and earned a second bachelor’s degree in psychology, a second master’s degree in counseling, and a doctorate in counseling psychology.
After completing training, Dr. Maisel became a California licensed family therapist and worked exclusively with creative and performing artists. In time he moved from therapy and the medical model to coaching, where he founded the profession of creativity coaching.
Dr. Maisel has a son, David Maisel, by his first marriage, and two daughters, Natalya Maisel and Kira Maisel, with his wife Ann Mathesius Maisel. In 2012 Eric and Ann will celebrate 35 years together. They live in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Dr. Maisel served as adjunct faculty at St. Mary’s College (Moraga, California) for ten years and created and wrote Callboard Magazine’s Staying Sane in the Theater column. He has presented lectures and workshops for the American Psychological Association, the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, the Paris Writers Workshop, the North Carolina School of the Arts, the Savannah College of Arts and Crafts, the U. C. Berkeley Counseling Center, and many other venues.
Dr. Maisel has been a guest on, quoted in, or interviewed by Redbook, Glamour, Cosmo Teen, Men’s Health, Body and Soul, KRON television news, Martha Stewart Living, Self, Marin Magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Daily News, The Arizona Republic, Common Boundary, and has provided hundreds of radio, television, and print interviews.
Dr. Maisel has been the keynote speaker at the Jack London Writer’s Conference, Pikes Peak Writer’s Conference, William Saroyan Writer’s Conference, Indiana Arts’ Administrators Conference, Mendocino Writer’s Conference, Santa Fe Conference on Creative Tourism, Arizona State University Arts & Letters Convocation, and many other conferences. He has presented workshops at the Omega Institute and the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health and at locations worldwide, including in San Francisco, New York, London, Paris, Antwerp and Berlin.
Dr. Maisel currently writes a weekly column for wholeliving.com, a bi-weekly column for Art Bistro, a monthly column for Professional Artist Magazine, and occasional pieces for the Huffington Post. He hosted a hundred episodes of The Joy of Living Creatively and Your Purpose-Centered Life with the Personal Life Media Network and provides core trainings for the Creativity Coaching Association.
In 2011 Dr. Maisel began two new endeavors, the World Salon (found on this site) where creative and performing artists worldwide can find free resources and a home; and the teaching of noimetics, a new philosophy of meaning that articulates the paradigm shift from seeking meaning to making meaning. Dr. Maisel has had forty books published and continues to train creativity coaches and to work with individual clients in his creativity coaching practice.
BOOKS
RETHINKING DEPRESSION—New World Library, 2012
YOUR BEST LIFE IN THE ARTS—Singingwood Press, 2011
MURDER IN BERLIN—Singingwood Press, 2011
ASTER LYNN—Singingwood Press, 2011
BECOME A CREATIVITY COACH NOW!—Singingwood Press, 2011
THE POWER OF SLEEP THINKING—Singingwood Press, 2011
MASTERING CREATIVE ANXIETY — New World Library, 2011
BRAINSTORM: HARNESSING THE POWER OF PRODUCTIVE OBSESSIONS — New World Library, 2010
A WRITER’S SPACE — Adam’s Media, 2009
THE ATHEIST’S WAY — New World Library, 2009
CREATIVE RECOVERY — Shambhala, 2008
TOXIC CRITICISM — McGraw-Hill, 2007
TEN ZEN SECONDS — Sourcebooks, 2007
CREATIVITY FOR LIFE — New World Library, 2007
EVERYDAY YOU — Conari, 2007
A WRITER’S SAN FRANCISCO — New World Library, 2006
WHAT WOULD YOUR CHARACTER DO? — Writer’s Digest Books, 2006
PERFORMANCE ANXIETY — Backstage Books, 2005
COACHING THE ARTIST WITHIN — New World Library, 2005
A WRITER’S PARIS — Writer’s Digest Books, 2005
THE ART OF THE BOOK PROPOSAL — Tarcher/Penguin 2004
WRITERS AND ARTISTS ON LOVE — New World Library, 2004
WRITERS AND ARTISTS ON DEVOTION — New World Library, 2004
THE VAN GOGH BLUES — Rodale, 2002
WRITE MIND — Tarcher/Penguin, 2002
20 COMMUNICATION TIPS AT WORK — New World Library, 2001
THE CREATIVITY BOOK — Tarcher/Penguin 2000
20 COMMUNICATION TIPS FOR FAMILIES — New World Library, 2000
SLEEP THINKING — Adams Media, 2000
LIVING THE WRITER’S LIFE — Watson-Guptill, 1999
DEEP WRITING — Tarcher/Penguin, 1999
AFFIRMATIONS FOR ARTISTS — Tarcher/Penguin, 1996
FEARLESS CREATING — Tarcher/Penguin, 1995
ARTISTS SPEAK — Harper San Francisco, 1993
STAYING SANE IN THE ARTS—Tarcher/Penguin, 1992
THE FRETFUL DANCER—Aegina Press, 1988.
THE BLACKBIRDS OF MULHOUSE—Maya Press, 1984.
DISMAY—Maya Press, 1982.
THE KINGSTON PAPERS—Manor Books (ghostwriter), 1978.
THE BLACK NARC—Manor Books (ghostwriter), 1977.
BIORHYTHM—Simon & Schuster (ghostwriter), 1976.


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