Maria Popova (Bulgarian: Мария Попова; born 28 July 1984) is a Bulgarian-born, American-based essayist, book author, poet, and writer of literary and arts commentary and cultural criticism that has found wide appeal both for her writing and for the visual stylistics that accompany it. In 2006, she started the blog Brain Pickings, an online publication that she has fought to maintain advertisement-free. The blog, renamed to The Marginalian upon its 15th birthday in 2021, features her writing on books, the arts, philosophy, culture, and other subjects.