Ayelet Waldman is a novelist, screenwriter, activist, and essayist primarily known for her Mommy-Track Mysteries series. She graduated from Wesleyan University in 1986 where she studied psychology and government and received her JD from Harvard Law Shcool in 1991. Ayelet served as a federal public defender and an adjunct professor at the University of California, Berkeley law school. During her time at Berkeley, she taught a class on the legal implications of the war on drugs.
In 2017 Ayelet published A Really Good Day, How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life which documented her experiences microdosing LSD to treat her debilitating mood and anxiety disorders. Ayelet decided to self-treat herself with LSD after reading James Fadiman‘s 2011 The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide.
The ultimate goal of her psychedelic experiment, Ayelet told The New Yorker in 2017 interview, was to “make herself a less volatile mother and wife.” After experiencing the positive results with microdosing LSD, Ayelet hoped to reach others with her message about the therapeutic uses of psychedelics. She told The New Yorker,
I want people who would never consider psychedelic drugs to read this and think, Wait a minute. Maybe this is not so crazy.