Unhemmed: The Story of Claire McCardell

Big news! I’m writing a book about the trailblazing fashion designer Claire McCardell, whose visionary designs helped women live independent lives.

Neil Gaiman Profile

“Neil breaks life down to the fundamentals of what it is that makes us human,” the actor Jon Hamm tells me.

The Endless Robbing of Native American Graves

For this cover story in The Washington Post Magazine, I go inside the harrowing true crime story of American pothunters.

Space Oddity

In 1927, a Baltimore inventor built a rocket to get to the planet Venus. Nearly a century later, a documentary crew is on a mission to find it.

Essay: After the Cure

My mother’s childhood bout with polio paralyzed more than her body. I’ve spent much of my life trying to understand that paralysis.

The Case of the Stolen Ruby Slippers

In this cover story for The Washington Post Magazine, I hunt down one of the most infamous crimes in Hollywood history.

The Washington Post Magazine: Claire McCardell

“Men are free from the clothes problem—why should I not follow their example?” A profile of Claire McCardell who took on the fashion industry and revolutionized what women wear.

Podcast: Ghost Stories with The Inner Loop

I talk literary ghosts and haunted houses and creepy dollhouse murder scenes with the literary mavens of The Inner Loop. I also read from my memoir-in-progress.

The Secret Life of Trees

In this cover story for the Johns Hopkins Health Review, I go inside the labs of scientists endeavoring to map the genome of one of the oldest living organisms on earth.

The New Yorker: Nutshell Studies Feature

How Frances Glessner Lee, a millionaire heiress and a grandmother, pioneered crime scene investigation with doll houses.

Podcast: Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death

A Podcast interview about my research into the life of Frances Glessner Lee and her Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death for The New Yorker.

Fiction: McSweeney’s

In 2017 the Mall of America announced a writer-in-residence program and the idea of living and writing inside a mall inspired this piece for McSweeney’s Internet Tendencies

Fiction: The Sea of Tranquility

An aging astronaut struggles with soaring expectations and an unexpected phobia in this story published in The Southern Review.

The Cult of Busy

There’s a global epidemic of overscheduling and it’s ruining our health. Here’s how to recalibrate your relationship with time.

Essay: On Nostalgia

Winner of the 2015 Hrushka Nonfiction Prize and published in Passages North.

Essay: Notes From a Suicide

A Pushcart Prize-nominated essay about suicide and the legacy of family secrets. Recognized in Best American Essays 2016.

Essay: Mapping Desire

This essay explores the concept of “desire lines” and considers how we build cities with empathy.

The Rise of Orange Wine

Why the oldest winemaking technique in the world is making a comeback.

Fiction: The Last Bullet

Two rival cultural organizations hear a rumor that one of the wealthiest women in town is on her deathbed. The hunt for her inheritance begins.

Essay: Architecture of Civility

Architecture is more than merely aesthetics. Listen to my on-air essay for public radio about architecture and design.