Journalist

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A former editor at Atlas Obscura, I’ve written for The New York Times, National Geographic, Smithsonian, WIRED, Gizmodo, Culture Trip (where I also worked part-time) Mental Floss, the AV Club, among others. Throughout my career, I’ve crossed verticals to cover travel, history, science, wellness, culture, and art, turning around high-quality, SEO-optimized, reported features as both an editor and writer.

I’m also the author of the bestselling book The Beginner’s Guide to Alchemy, published by Callisto and Rockridge Press in May 2020, which has been translated into multiple languages and has sold over a million copies.

Journalism Portfolio - selected work

History

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“Medieval Elites Used Handwashing as a Shrewd Power Play” for National Geographic

The before-meal wash was an important ritual for peasants and nobility alike—especially since people often ate with their hands.

This article has garnered over a million views and became the second most-read story on Apple News after its publication.

Read the full article here.

Science

“Meet the Meteorite Hunters Who Rush In When Space Rocks Crash to Earth” for Atlas Obscura

For this community of “space cowboys,” entrepreneurs, and enthusiasts, a fireball streaming across the sky offers big risks and bigger rewards. But these hunters will need to act fast if they want a piece of it—literally.

Read the full article here.

Film & TV

“How Loki Shapeshifted From Nordic Folklore to a Marvel Icon” for Gizmodo

There are more than 800 years between the stories of Viking god Loki first being written down and his arrival in the Marvel cinematic universe. Read all about how the god of mischief shapeshifted into an MCU superhero here.

Or check out the Portuguese version over at Gizmodo Brazil.

Travel

“Returning to the Valley of the Assassins in the Footsteps of Explorer Freya Stark” for Atlas Obscura

“The original cause of trouble” was when a nine-year-old girl received a copy of Arabian Nights. At least, that’s how Freya Stark would explain her wanderlust more than 30 years later in the preface of her 1934 travelogue, The Valley of the Assassins. Fast forward more than a century later, and another book inspired a different young girl’s adventures to far-flung corners of the globe. That child is now British adventurer Elise Wortley, who’s about to embark on her most daring trip yet.

Read the full story here.

Celebrity

“Why a Popstar Wanted to Go Ghost Hunting” for Atlas Obscura

While an editor at Atlas Obscura, I launched Secret Obsessions, the magazine’s first-ever celebrity column where we ask wondrous people to take us down a rabbit hole. This edition features Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter Kesha.

Arts

“Three Decades of Linda Stark’s Oil Paintings, on View in New York” for The New York Times

Artists have been working with oil paint for more than a millennium, but few have explored its sculptural possibilities as deftly as the Los Angeles-based Linda Stark. In a process that can take years, Stark drips, layers and shapes oil paint until it rises an inch or more beyond the canvas, creating three-dimensional images that look like surreal, metaphysical clip art.

Read the full piece here.

Politics

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A Black ‘Cancer Alley’ Community Makes Gains Against Massive Plastics Plant for Drilled News

The Biden-Harris administration's first environmental racism challenge may be Formosa's $9.4 billion petrochemical 'ethane cracker' in St James Parish, Louisiana. Read all about it here.

Personal Essays

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“How A Doll’s House Part 2 and Brett Kavanaugh Taught An Actor How To Listen” for Stage & Candor

What does it take to make a nation listen? What about when that same country is in the midsts of the most controversial supreme court hearing in recent memory? Maybe we all just have to learn to listen a bit more as I posit in this personal essay.

 

To view my most up-to-date portfolio, check out my Muck Rack page.