I work with top writers and artists on Substack, focusing particularly on music, literature, sports, food, comedy, politics, and podcasts.

North Light is a bar, restaurant, bookshop, and record store in the Temescal neighborhood of Oakland. Our bookshop is curated by some of the best living writers, musicians, and artists, including Michael Chabon, Patti Smith, George Saunders, Samin Nosrat, Michael Ondaatje, Rebecca Solnit, Robert Pinsky, and others. I wrote about the challenges of keeping a small business afloat during a pandemic for the California Sunday Magazine: https://story.californiasunday.com/small-business-covid19-north-light

For City Arts & Lectures, The Battery, Book Passage, and others, I’ve conducted longform stage interviews with Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith, Elvis Costello, George Saunders, Pico Iyer, Robbie Robertson, Daniel Handler, and others.

How Money Became Dangerous (cowritten with Chris Varelas; Ecco/HarperCollins, November 5, 2019)Entertaining true stories from the financial services industry—spanning from the mid ’80s up to the present day—exploring key moments that changed Wall Street and the world of money from simple and functional to complicated and contentious.

Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing (14th edition, Pearson, 2019)This college textbook—in print for 55 years—has been at the top of the market for more than a decade.

Radio Silence was an award-winning magazine of literature and rock & roll that published beautifully designed print issues, launched a compelling online edition with smartphone apps, and produced live events. Distributed nationwide, our contributors included Bruce Springsteen, Carrie Brownstein, Lucinda Williams, Greil Marcus, Sam Lipsyte, Robert Pinsky, Rick Moody, David Remnick, Thao Nguyen, Paul Muldoon, Daniel Handler, and others. In my role as Founder and Editor in Chief, I commissioned and edited all pieces, managed the staff, hosted and produced events, and drove the creative direction of the company. I led content strategy and UX for the development of our digital edition, which included 23 monthly issues available on iOS, Android, and desktop platforms.

At the NEA, my role focused primarily on the agency’s national initiatives, including NEA Jazz Masters, Shakespeare in American Communities, and Operation Homecoming. I was part of the team that created The Big Read, for which I wrote and produced 24 audio documentaries about great books, documentaries that were broadcast on radio stations around the country and installed in every public library in America. I conducted intimate interviews with more than 200 artists and cultural icons, including Olivia de Havilland, Sandra Day O’Connor, James Earl Jones, Anthony Hopkins, Edward Albee, Mary Louise Parker, Elie Wiesel, Annette Bening, Robert Redford, and Hank Jones. For another of the NEA’s ongoing initiatives, Poetry Out Loud—now in its 16th year, having reached more than 4 million high school students—I co-wrote the curriculum and co-edited the anthology; co-directed the pilot and national rollout, working closely with all 50 State Arts Agencies; and produced the first two annual National Finals events in Washington, DC.

At The Berkeley School (then called Berkeley Montessori School), I taught 7th- and 8th-grade literature and math, founded the school’s athletic program, coached basketball, and launched a cultural enrichment program (offering intensive courses in the history of jazz, films of Ingmar Bergman, history and culture of Spain, 20th-century novel, and more). Later I taught at a public high school in Boston and at Boston University.