Amanda Palmer

Author and musician

Amanda Palmer is a best-selling author, songwriter, mother, feminist, community leader, pianist and ukulele-enthusiast who simultaneously embraces and explodes traditional frameworks of music, theatre, and art. She has taught at both Wesleyan and Bard Universities, written for The Guardian and The New Statesman and other press outlets of note, and she is a long-time affiliate of the Berkman Klein Institute for Internet and Society at Harvard University.

Palmer first came to prominence as part of the punk cabaret duo The Dresden Dolls, earning global applause for their inventive songcraft and wide-ranging theatricality. Her solo career has proven equally brave and boundless, featuring such groundbreaking works as the 100% crowd-fundedTheatre Is Evil, which made a top 10 debut on the Billboard 200 in 2012 and remains the top-funded original music project on Kickstarter.

In 2013 she presented “ The Art of Asking” at the annual TED conference, which has been viewed over 20 million times worldwide. Palmer expanded her philosophy into the New York Times best-selling memoir The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help. Since 2015 Palmer has used the patronage platform Patreon to fund her artwork with an average of 20,000 patrons micro-supporting her work and life each month. She lives and works in Lexington, Massachusetts.