Joshua Wolf Shenk, a writer based in New York City, is the author of Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness (Houghton Mifflin, 2005). Based on seven years of research on Lincoln and the medical, intellectual, and political culture around him, Lincoln’s Melancholy also reflects Shenk’s longstanding interests in mental health, psychology, and spirituality in contemporary life. The book was previewed by Shenk's July 2005 cover story in Time Magazine and adapted as a cover story in the October 2005 Atlantic Monthly. It’s been named one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Shenk’s work has also appeared in Harper’s Magazine, The New Yorker, GQ, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and other publications. He is a former editor of The Washington Monthly and has been a correspondent for The New Republic, The Economist, and U.S. News & World Report. His essay “A Melancholy of Mine Own” appeared in the national bestseller, Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression, edited by Nell Casey.

Shenk also often speaks on mental health issues, historical topics, and on modern politics and culture. A writing teacher and creative coach, Shenk teaches at the New School University, and conducts private and group workshops through The Wolf Method, which Shenk founded and directs.

Shenk served as chief consultant for the 2006 History Channel documentary, “Lincoln,” and he sits on the advisory council for the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.

Shenk began his work on Lincoln’s depression as a Rosalynn Carter Fellow in Mental Health Journalism at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia. His other honors include a fellowship at the New York Foundation for the Arts in non-fiction literature, a Frank Whiting Scholarship at the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, and residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the Blue Mountain Center.

Shenk’s fiction and miscellany have appeared on public radio’s The Next Big Thing and ReallySmallTalk.Com. In the spring of 2004, he made his stand-up debut at The Comic Strip in New York City. He is vice-chairman of the board of directors of Stories at the Moth, the urban storytelling series, where he has also curated shows and appeared on stage.