Personal Honesty and Privacy
How to face the truth challenge in nonfiction storytelling
Inside Reader
A deep dive into books, media, and writing — and the impact of AI — by the author of FIRST-PERSON JOURNALISM
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Latest posts
The Problem We Ignore Because It Freaks Us Out
Women get the short end — again — with the “AI Mystique”
What Is Memoir For?
On the power of introspection, messy as it can be, and Lindy West’s “Adult Braces”
Every Time I Read About Sam Altman, I Get More Worried
A New Yorker investigative piece by Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz takes me right back to my own 2023 post about the tech titan's brief fall and return
My Love Letter to Subjectivity
In these dark times, I celebrate personal writing and inner life as an antidote to AI-generated writing
Wuthering Heights 2026: Why the Violence Feels So Familiar
On being a bystander to abusive rage in Emily Brontë's novel — and today's world
Light in the Darkness
Why protest? To cultivate political imagination — and “creative dissent,” in MLK’s words
The Worst Dystopias Come From Us
Who needs a virus from outer space? AI and the hive mind of "Pluribus"
Why We Need Brave, Messy, Imperfect Writers
When responding to real life — and death — transcends artificial storytelling
History Is a Living Thing
Five years ago, a walk on Election Day conjures my father's fierce questions — and the whirlwind