Carey Wallace

Carey Wallace is the author of The Blind Contessa’s New Machine, which was released by Viking/Penguin in 2010. The book tells the story of the invention of the typewriter, which was created in 1808 by an Italian count for a blind woman so that she could write him letters. On the surface it tells their love story, but at heart it’s about invention of every kind: lies, dreams, technology, imagination and the ways it fails us.

She is the founder of the Hillbilly Underground, an arts retreat that draws poets, painters, musicians, filmmakers, and other artists to rural Michigan from around the country each year, and of the International Arts Movement’s Working Artist’s Initiative, which was created to help emerging artists form strong artistic habits.