For Slate, I wrote an essay about how I waste time by spotting liars in clips on YouTube. It all started with a click on a YouTube talk by former CIA Officer Susan Carnicero. As I watched, riveted, Carnicero went…
For Longreads, I uncovered a shocking part of America’s history. In the 1880s, thousands of Chinese-Americans were driven from towns up and down the West Coast. Their neighborhoods were destroyed, their belongings stolen, and their lives threatened. The first incident…
I have a new article up at the Smithsonian. It’s about Stephen Bishop, a slave who was also one of America’s first cave explorers. He discovered much of Mammoth Cave National Park, the longest cave system in the world. ……
I wrote an essay for La Review of Books. It’s about the Chinese poems on the walls of Angel Island Detention Center. From 1910 to 1940, the Angel Island Immigration Station processed 175,000 Chinese immigrants. It was called the “Ellis…
I wrote a short-short for The Forge Literary Magazine. It’s called Sleep Disturbance: They say we’re primates, but you looked like a bear as you padded through the blue light of my neighbourhood, naked. More Here.
I wrote an essay for Literary Hub. It’s about the California wildfires, Climate Change, and the writing of Frankenstein. Excerpt: The campground in Oregon is foggy in the morning. The air is soft and clean. I walk out of my…
I’m so happy to have my first piece in The New York Times. I retraced Eugene O’Neill’s footsteps around San Francisco, where he raced to complete his best works before he lost his ability to write. It ran in the…
This October, we went to Greece! It was a sensational trip. (Good word, sensational.) Here are pictures. If you want more, Follow Me On Instagram. We visited the Acropolis in Athens: And saw where the Oracle of Delphi used to…
Oh hello. It has been awhile. Well, we’ve been busy. For one thing, we’ve been driving around the country in our camper van. Here are the places we went: Yosemite Bryce Canyon Dinosaur National Monument in Utah The Rocky Mountains…
I wrote an essay for Ploughshares on Student Debt and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, the novel written by Betty Smith. It looks at the difficulty of paying for school, both now, and in Smith’s time. Things have changed, but…