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Chaos, Creativity, Completion: New Approaches to Writing and ADHD
Fifteen essays that offer inspiration, encouragement, and advice from accomplished writers with ADHD.
A rising number of ADHD diagnoses, particularly among adults, is not only confirmed by medical studies and mainstream reporting but also borne out across social media and elsewhere among people who’d been privately coping with persistent, often inexpressible challenges. Many of the contributors to this collection can attest to how a later-in-life diagnosis radically demystified the patterns, impulses, and impasses that had affected their lives and their writing. The essays in Chaos, Creativity, Completion reflect the ways poets, novelists, memoirists, filmmakers, and others have come to understand and engage the relationship between their ADHD and their creative tool kits.
These essays consider how writers can embrace rather than mask their neurodifference, offering multiple ways of finding writing practices that work for ADHD brains—including techniques that often look quite different from traditional writing instruction. Some essays are analytical, some are reflective, and some are delightfully weird, employing humor, research, personal narrative, deep description, close reading, and experimental approaches to genre and form. Each essay also concludes with a writing prompt, providing readers with opportunities to expand their own creative toolkits. Finally, the book includes an interview with David Kessler, a licensed therapist and nationally recognized ADHD advocate, and an appendix with a glossary of helpful terms and a list of recommended resources, from books and organizations to apps and gadgets.
Just as the experience of ADHD varies from person to person, so, too, do the ways those experiences can be expressed. Chaos, Creativity, Completion is a kaleidoscopic, adventurous series of takes on what writing looks like today.
A rising number of ADHD diagnoses, particularly among adults, is not only confirmed by medical studies and mainstream reporting but also borne out across social media and elsewhere among people who’d been privately coping with persistent, often inexpressible challenges. Many of the contributors to this collection can attest to how a later-in-life diagnosis radically demystified the patterns, impulses, and impasses that had affected their lives and their writing. The essays in Chaos, Creativity, Completion reflect the ways poets, novelists, memoirists, filmmakers, and others have come to understand and engage the relationship between their ADHD and their creative tool kits.
These essays consider how writers can embrace rather than mask their neurodifference, offering multiple ways of finding writing practices that work for ADHD brains—including techniques that often look quite different from traditional writing instruction. Some essays are analytical, some are reflective, and some are delightfully weird, employing humor, research, personal narrative, deep description, close reading, and experimental approaches to genre and form. Each essay also concludes with a writing prompt, providing readers with opportunities to expand their own creative toolkits. Finally, the book includes an interview with David Kessler, a licensed therapist and nationally recognized ADHD advocate, and an appendix with a glossary of helpful terms and a list of recommended resources, from books and organizations to apps and gadgets.
Just as the experience of ADHD varies from person to person, so, too, do the ways those experiences can be expressed. Chaos, Creativity, Completion is a kaleidoscopic, adventurous series of takes on what writing looks like today.
- GenresNonfictionAdhdWriting
232 pages, Paperback
Published March 12, 2026
About the author
Chloe Martinez
3 books4 followersChloe Martinez is a poet and a scholar of South Asian religions. She is the author of the collection Ten Thousand Selves (The Word Works) and the chapbook Corner Shrine (Backbone Press). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in AGNI, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah and elsewhere.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 24, 2025
My interest in reading about ADHD is a fairly recent development. I suppose that will happen when you start to suspect you have it. While not currently diagnosed, the more I read about ADHD, the more things in my life have started to make sense.
I was especially excited when I was approved to read Chaos, Creativity, Completion because it’s one of the few resources I’ve come across that addresses the ADHD experience in writers. The essays in this collection range widely. Some were chaotic and difficult for me to follow. Others touched on sensitive and necessary topics such as systemic policies, infrastructure, and culture. Then there were the ones that I found myself tearing up at because what I saw was a reflection of myself. To be validated and understood. To know you’re not doing things wrong. Just differently.
The writing prompts at the end of each essay are as unique as the essays themselves. Some may seem out right strange, but you never know what can happen until you give it a try.
Many thanks to the University of Chicago Press, NetGalley, and the editors for this eARC!
I was especially excited when I was approved to read Chaos, Creativity, Completion because it’s one of the few resources I’ve come across that addresses the ADHD experience in writers. The essays in this collection range widely. Some were chaotic and difficult for me to follow. Others touched on sensitive and necessary topics such as systemic policies, infrastructure, and culture. Then there were the ones that I found myself tearing up at because what I saw was a reflection of myself. To be validated and understood. To know you’re not doing things wrong. Just differently.
The writing prompts at the end of each essay are as unique as the essays themselves. Some may seem out right strange, but you never know what can happen until you give it a try.
Many thanks to the University of Chicago Press, NetGalley, and the editors for this eARC!
May 18, 2026
These essays are not only eye-opening to the difficulties of having ADHD in a world that ostracizes people, but these essays also expose the beauty of brains that thinks differently, creatively. The diverse voices, perspectives, and structures are a testament to that. And the writing prompts and encouragement is valuable for all writers, regardless of neurology. I do not have ADHD, but I have children who do and I found this book helpful in understanding them.
August 20, 2026
Great prompts for writing included at end of every chapter.
For those who need it, they do also include helpful tips about writing with ADHD. Helpful as well that they include the conversation with the therapist at the end about other coping strategies.
For those who need it, they do also include helpful tips about writing with ADHD. Helpful as well that they include the conversation with the therapist at the end about other coping strategies.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews