New York, New York, United States
I'm a widely published essayist, award-winning journalist, and literary/cultural critic. Borges might have called me a "heresiarch," which is really just a fancy word for "nonconformist." My unique perspective has served me well: I was early in recognizing and diagnosing several major trends that are impacting contemporary American society, from the crisis of masculinity to the culture industry's puritanical turn. In essays on figures from Franz Kafka to Denis Johnson, I have dived deep into their lives and legacies and teased out what makes them worth reading today. My essay writing has drawn praise from Lewis Lapham, Leon Wieseltier, Walter Kirn, and others. Likewise in my past life as a technology journalist, I was early in reckoning with some of the most transformative innovations of our time. Foremost among these was Bitcoin. My 2017 book on Bitcoin and its pioneers was excerpted by Wired, Business Insider, and Delayed Gratification magazine and was named one of five books one must read to understand the past 10 years. As its author, I spoke at Google and the Museum of American Finance, appeared on dozens of TV and radio programs, and was quoted as an expert by The New Yorker and CNBC. I'm also a literary author in my own right, with a debut novel and other works of fiction and creative nonfiction in search of a publisher. With my agent at CAA having been laid off, I am now in the market for new representation. I'm an M.S. graduate of Columbia Journalism School and the recipient in my class year of the Journalism Editorial Award. I have since worked full-time as a reporter, editor, and senior staff writer at various outlets, where I became known for my artful prose and for tackling in-depth stories on difficult subjects. Occasionally I take on corporate and individual clients as an editorial consultant, copywriter, and expert in strategic communications. I have worked with multiple tech startups and my experience in this line of work goes back well over a decade: I edited a book for the Chaplain of the U.S. Senate when I was 23 years old.
As an essayist, I specialize in literary deep dives, longform cultural criticism, and hybrid pieces that blend history, personal narrative, philosophical meditation, and close reading to provide intellectual pleasure and a sense of genuine discovery. A dance of ideas to verbal music. I have written for Liberties, The Hedgehog Review, City Journal, the Poetry Foundation, First Things, The Point, The American Reader, and others.
Journalist and travel writer covering technology, business, and culture. I have written for Rolling Stone, Fortune, The New Yorker, Outside, PORT, Avaunt, The American Reader, Entrepreneur, the Los Angeles Review of Books and others.
BREAKER was a digital magazine focused on the emerging world of crypto: the tech, the people behind it, and the larger forces and systems that influenced it (and were influenced by it). Think of it like the early Wired: a seemingly narrow focus with broad ambitions, fueled by great journalism. BREAKER was aimed at a general audience, which means that it tackled business stories, crime stories, politics stories, feature profiles and much more. As a senior staff writer, I wrote major features (often 6,000 words or more) as well as thoughtful columns and in-depth Q&As with smart people from a variety of disciplines. I was laid off in Feb. 2019, during budget cuts.
Wrote a deeply reported, 160,000-word narrative about the global phenomenon of Bitcoin and the fight for the future of finance (yours and mine and the world's). It was published in April 2017 in the U.K. and May 2017 in North America. This book originally was under contract to Portfolio, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
Served as curator of video content for the Business and Technology channels of N3TWORK, a startup Internet television network designed for phones and tablets.
Wrote regular features (in-depth profiles, trend pieces and more) and short news articles for Entrepreneur.com, managed and edited freelance contributors and performed other editorial duties as necessary. Spearheaded Entrepreneur.com's expansion into longform journalism.
Contributed regular feature articles and news-driven blog posts to Entrepreneur.com and its affiliate, Young Entrepreneur.
Managed all social media accounts, edited stories, moderated reader comments, scheduled content in CMS, helped to manage editorial calendar and wrote occasional blog posts for Entrepreneur.com.