The groundbreaking science of how and why we talk, and how this ability impacts every area of our lives.
Coming June 2025 from Penguin Random House.
Hi! I’m Maryellen.
I am an author and researcher interested in psycholinguistics, the study of how we comprehend, produce, and learn languages.
I have researched the impact of language in children, young adults, elderly adults, and patients with Alzheimer’s disease, as well as language production in six different languages.
“All human behaviour, language, thoughts, feelings, actions, and consciousness emerge from this massively interconnected network of neurons. Each neuron is pretty dumb; it either fires in a certain situation or it doesn’t, but out of this mass dumbness comes great cleverness.”
— Trevor Harley
What People Are Saying About More than Words
“A warm and fascinating account of the beautiful, strenuous, fumbling act of pressing nebulous thoughts into sentences, sure to provoke new respect for everyday chatter.”
— Julie Sedivy, author of Linguaphile: A Life of Language Love
“Weaving together research, personal stories, quotes, and even self-help advice, this is a book about talking that is not about communication—instead, it is about how talking sharpens focus, modulates emotions, improves memory, scaffolds learning, benefits aging, and so much more.”
— Viorica Marian, Professor at Northwestern University and author of The Power of Language