Writing
Recent Publications
My review of Alix Ohlin’s Inside for the Rumpus
Crossing the Gulf: Tania James’ Aerogrammes for the Huffington Post
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them for the Huffington Post
Cheney’s Change of Heart for the Huffington Post
The Rumpus Interviews Elif Batuman
Waiting for Wagamama on the Huffington Post
The Highballers Hit Their Prime on the Huffington Post
The Lizard King on the Huffington Post
Anthologies
The McSweeey’s Book of Politics and Musicals (Vintage 2012)
The McSweeney’s Joke Book of Book Jokes (Vintage 2008)
Mountain Man Dance Moves: The McSweeney’s Book of Lists (Vintage 2006)
Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans: The Best of McSweeney’s (Humor Category) (Knopf 2004 / Vintage 2005)
Stumbling and Raging: More Politically Inspired Fiction (McAdam/Cage 2005)
The Rumpus
The Rumpus Interviews Elif Batuman
The Last Book I Loved: Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter
Missing Tiles in the American Mosaic: The Rumpus Interview of Alia Malek
The Rest of the Story: The Rumpus Interview with Chris Tarry
Paperback Writer: The Rumpus Interview with Michael Greenberg
Harlem Blues: A Review of Harlem is Nowhere
The Last Book I Loved: Stories I Stole
The Last Book I Loved: Master and Margarita
The Last Book I Loved: The Possessed
My Rumpus author page: Here
Some Experiments in Short Fiction
Abandonment, finalist in NPR’s Three-Minute Fiction Contest
Judas Breaks His Silence, on Opium
How I Met Lana the Tigress, on Canned Coffee
McSweeney’s Internet Tendency
The Spark That Set the Arab World on Fire: Dispatches from Post-Revolutionary Tunisia
Dispatches from an Environmental Lawyer Who is Trying to Grow a Mustache
Some of my favorites:
Jane Eyre Runs for President
Rod Blagojevich Writes 25 Things About Himself on Facebook
Thomas Friedman Explains the Issues of the Day
Our Long National Nightmare is Finally Over
Ed Harrelson, Teen Drivers’ Education Instructor
Reasons to Fear Canada
Raymond Carver, Self-Help Author
Certain Things Have Come to My Attention
Lessons Learned from my Study of Literature
Al Pacino’s Character-Development Exercises for “Scent of a Woman”
The Name Game (with Stephany Aulenback)
Discarded Art-Book Proposals, Reconsidered
Three Thought Experiments (With Study Questions)
From the Found Notebooks of Homer’s Writing Group
A Grateful Nation Pays Homage to Gergen
David Gergen Was My Lover
The Smew
Local Man Glimpses Abyss Beyond Veil of Consciousness
Singer Michael Buble Admits His Heterosexuality
Awkward Moment in Elevator Just Will Not End
Short Story Produces Moment of Quiet Reflection
The Huffington Post
Waiting for Wagamama
The Highballers Hit Their Prime
The Lizard King
Live from Tahrir Square
Inside the White House
Inside the National Archives
I am the They We Need to Reclaim Our Honor From
Kanye Interrupts Obama Speech to Investment Bankers
A Love Poem to Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin: Vice-Presidential Candidate or Spawn of Satan?
Various Nonesuch
My McSweeney’s Tunisia Dispatches were an original source for Patrick Vassel’s and Adel Hanish’s one-act play “Nothing Left to Burn,” which premiered at Ars Nova in New York City as part of Antfest 2011.
Elif Batuman published my spooky reader dream on her blog
I wrote the Bat Vision Glasses and Utter Darkness product descriptions for the 826 Museum of Unnatural History
Jackie Kryszewski and I co-wrote the Self-Guided Tour to the 826 Museum of Unnatural History
Ross Arbes and I co-wrote “Caves of Our Fathers,” a personal essay by Toledo Smith, estranged son of Unnaturalist Society co-founder Montana Smith
Ross and I also wrote the Journal of the Unknown Founder, an original exhibit in the 826 Museum of Unnatural History
My story “A Hard Rain, a Really, Really, Hard Rain” earned honorable mention in the Out of the Storm News Bad Writing About the Weather Contest
My story “Bliss Ferrel: Pirate in the Age of Reason,” was included in the first Call and Response show at the Hamiltonian Gallery, in Washington, D.C.
