When award-winning poet and critic, and director of creative writing at Yale University, Richard Deming sat down to write a book about loneliness, he knew his story, among many others, would lead the way in excavating this complex yet universal human experience.

“Essentially, I’ve suffered from chronic loneliness all my life,” Deming shared. “I have substance abuse and addiction in my background as well, and loneliness certainly fueled that. A few years ago, I’d written my second collection of poems, Day for Night, and friends kept referring to it as ‘a meditation on loneliness.’ To be honest, I was surprised because I hadn’t been conscious of that being a theme running through the work, but of course when they pointed it out, I couldn’t not see it.”

He went on to say, “As a topic, loneliness remains understudied and under-addressed, even as it seems to be more and more prevalent all the time.” Determined to better understand loneliness and its connections to creativity, Deming built the book, This Exquisite Loneliness, around the life stories of key figures who acknowledged loneliness as part of their creative and intellectual lives.

Deming is right—loneliness does seem to be on the rise. In fact, in 2023 the U.S. surgeon general issued an advisory on what was named “our epidemic of loneliness and isolation,” which included a National Strategy to Advance Social Connection, an unprecedented step in our nation’s history (OASH, 2023). For many people, turning to social media for connection has become a daily habit in our digitally-saturated world. But this could be making matters worse.

According to research, the more time you spend on social media, the more likely you are to feel lonely. One study showed that more time spent scrolling through snapshots of other people’s happiness on social media actually fueled loneliness and distress, possibly driven by jealousy (Wang, et al, 2020). Using........

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