Kenneth Miller—Mapping the Darkness: The Visionary Scientists Who Unlocked the Mysteries of Sleep

MAPPING THE DARKNESS:
THE VISIONARY SCIENTISTS
WHO UNLOCKED THE MYSTERIES OF SLEEP
Kenneth Miller
Hachette Books, October 3, 2023, $32.50, eBook, $16.99
Book ISBN-13: 978-0306924958, eBook ISBN: 978-0306924972

Miller reports:

Mapping the Darkness grew out of an assignment for Discover magazine on recent discoveries in sleep science, which awakened me to the central role that slumber plays in human health.

As I was reporting the story, everyone in my family began having serious sleep troubles, and I became obsessed with the topic. But when I looked for a history of the field aimed at laypeople, I learned that none existed. So—after getting a thumbs-up from an agent who'd asked me for book ideas—I set out to write one.

I started the research in 2016 while continuing to toil as a freelance journalist. To give the narrative a coherent arc, I decided to structure it around the biographies of four pioneers: Nathaniel Kleitman, the founder of modern sleep science; Kleitman’s students Eugene Aserinsky, who discovered REM sleep, and William Dement, who invented the specialty of sleep medicine; and Dement’s mentee Mary Carskadon, who uncovered an epidemic of sleep deprivation among teenagers and launched a global movement to fight it.

Working evenings and weekends, I read everything I could find about the development of the discipline and the lives of my protagonists—hundreds of scientific papers and news articles; scores of books, dissertations, and unpublished memoirs—and interviewed dozens of sources.

After three years of digging, I wrote a detailed proposal, which my agent sold to Hachette in mid-2020. By then, COVID-19 made travel impossible. A visit to Carskadon’s Brown University lab had to wait until July 2021. It took another six months to access the Kleitman archives at the University of Chicago and the Dement archives at Stanford. There, I found so much fantastic material that I needed several more months to process it.

The book went through three drafts, with the final revision delivered in December 2022—six years after this voyage began. I’m thrilled with the results, however belated, and hope readers will be, too.

My advice to aspiring authors: Find a project that arouses your passion. Give it all you’ve got for as long as it takes. And always warn your editor if you expect delays.

Contact info:

• Kenneth Miller, ken@kennethmiller.net, https://kennethmiller.net,
  @KenMillerWrites, KenMillerWrites
• Book: Mapping the Darkness
• Publicist: Kindall Gant, 929-777-3879‬; kindall.gant@hbgusa.com‬
• Agent: Ethan Bassoff, 347-436-6303; ebassoff@wmeagency.com‬

---

NASW members: will your book be published soon? Promote it by submitting your report for Advance Copy.

Tell your fellow NASW members how you came up with the idea for your book, developed a proposal, found an agent and publisher, funded and conducted research, and put the book together. Include what you wish you had known before you began working on your book, or had done differently.

See https://www.nasw.org/advance-copy-submission-guidelines.

View Advance Copy archives at https://www.nasw.org/member-article/advance-copy.

Thinking of writing a book? If you are a NASW member, you may access a list of more than 200 books and online resources to help you craft your book proposal, find an agent and funding sources, negotiate your contract, learn about self-publishing, publicize and market your book, and more at https://www.nasw.org/article/write-book.

Send book info and questions about book publishing to Lynne Lamberg, NASW book editor, llamberg@nasw.org.

Follow @LynneLamberg on Twitter for news about science/medical books, writing, and NASW authors.

Banner image adapted from original photo by Kenneth Miller.

NASW invites publishers and publicists to purchase NASW website ads to promote their authors and books. Visit https://www.nasw.org/node/add/ad to access NASW’s self-service purchasing portal.