"Alice Flaherty first explores the brain state called hypergraphia - the overwhelming desire to write - and then the science behind its antithesis, writer's block. The Midnight Disease charts exciting new territory in the relationship between the creative mind and the body. Flaherty argues for the importance of emotion in writing, illuminates the role that mood disorders play in the lives of many writers, and explores with profound insight the experience of being "visited by the muse." Her understanding of the role of the brain's temporal lobes and limbic system in the drive to write challenges the popular idea that creativity emerges solely from the right side of the brain. Finally, The Midnight Disease casts light on the brain functions and dysfunctions of writers past and present, from Dostoevsky to Conrad, from Sylvia Plath to Stephen King."--Jacket.