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ABOUT ME

WRITER — EDITOR

My book project looks at the rise of behavioral economics as cultural common sense and a refusal of politics. It's got everything, Larry Summers, Jeffrey Epstein, Russia, bad TV, rideshare algorithms, and public intellectuals in the Obama administration. Working title, Behave! The Science of Influence in American Popular Culture. Ask me for more! 

Until recently, I was Editor-in-Chief of The Los Angeles Review of Books. Before that, I was section editor for Economics & Finance at LARB, while also teaching full-time at Whittier College, where I'm currently on leave. 

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ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, ENGLISH LANGUAGE & LITERATURE

WHITTIER COLLEGE

I teach contemporary American literature, creative writing, media studies, critical theory, and research methods at Whittier College. I started there ten years ago, and before I went on leave, I was the Director of the individualized major program. 

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FREELANCE & CONSULTING

On top of my freelance writing and academic research, I teach writing workshops, with a special focus on workshops for academics. I help academics at all levels pitch and articulate their research for a public-facing audience. This work draws on my experience at a wide variety of media outlets, and is informed not only by my years spent as a reporter, editor, and writer, but also, by my meditation practice and my certification as a mindfulness instructor.

 

As an editor and as a workshop leader in creative writing, narrative nonfiction, and of course, research-based prose, I help writers get back in touch first with their sense of purpose. Who do you want to reach, and why?

 

More than any list of tips and tricks, this process helps writers clarify why they're placing work, which ultimately helps them place it more successfully. 

 

I also help academic writers in particular make their success legible to their institutions. 

 

Get in touch for rates and availability (scroll down for contact form). 

MORE ABOUT ME

IThe picture on the right is from my appearance on a French and German television program called Arte, in an episode on Joan Didion and Malibu (you can try the link here, but it's not easy to see outside of Europe).

I wrote about Didion's conflicted relationship to land, based on a deep dive into the land records in Sacramento, as I tried to understand my own conflicted relationship to California and Didion, in an essay called Where I Am From.

 

Before I became an academic, I was a reporter.  And before my doctorate, I got an MFA in creative writing.  My fiction,  nonfiction, essays, and articles have appeared in a variety of outlets.

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Once upon a time, I sold everything I owned and moved to Rio de Janeiro to train capoeira, the Brazilian martial art and dance form. I lived in Copacabana and trained in Rocinha for a year, and then traveled around Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador.

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