This is the photo Cassidy DuHon took (hit him up if you need photos) that I always say I’m saving for when I host a murder podcast. I guess it’s ruined now.
Writing
My very first novel, Evvie Drake Starts Over, came out in June of 2019, and my second, Flying Solo, in 2022. I’m working on the next one - watch this space for news!
I've been writing all my life, but I've been writing professionally since 2001, when I got my first job writing recaps of The Amazing Race for Television Without Pity. I worked there until 2008, when I left and started Monkey See, NPR's first and only pop-culture blog, of which I was the first and only editor. Since then, the blog has been folded into my work with Pop Culture Happy Hour, but I still write for NPR.org regularly.
Some of my very favorite things I've written:
Reflections on the first black Bachelorette, and what her choice of suitors says.
An essay on similarities between live theater and prestige television.
Thoughts on the nature of fame, provoked by the podcast Missing Richard Simmons.
My piece on what I call The Age Of Enthusiasm, about the way culture is shifting from an economy driven by habit to one driven by passion, and what that means economically and artistically.
My deep (deep, deep) dive into the endlessly evolving cultural idea that is Cinderella.
A look at the way cultural panic -- like the one exploited all the way back in The Music Man -- never really leaves us.
Every Song In The Last Five Years Ranked By Uncontrollable Sobbing. A piece I love because the chance to live as a true obsessive is one every writer occasionally exploits.
“Enthusiasm enables grass-roots advocacy and humbling, stunning generosity. It enables viciousness and vileness and insufferable, status-conscious posturing. It feeds quixotic missions to obtain, as well as a sense of towering entitlement to possess: if you care about it, if you want it, and if you believe in it, you’re entitled to have it.”
At NPR, I write about TV and movies and books, but I also write about the weather and the internet and why solitude is important and why Minnesota gets such a bad rap in popular ideas about regional food.
Some of my writing about television:
20 Things You Desperately Need To Know About Mariah Carey's Hallmark Movie
A Good Fit: Why The Best Thing About Catastrophe Is People Laughing
Is There Really Too Much Television? (the kickoff essay for a multipart series about the future of TV)
In I Hate Christian Laettner, ESPN Explores The Belly Of The Beast
Parks And Recreation Shows The Beating Heart Of Its Great Love Story
“In most Hallmark movies, you can tell the difference between the Good Boyfriend and the Bad Boyfriend by the fact that Good Boyfriends work either as Professionally Tough People (cowboys, firefighters, trail guides) or Professionally Cuddly People (artists, music teachers), while Bad Boyfriends work as Professionally Greedy People (finance dudes, lawyers, real estate monsters).”
“Particularly between various combinations of Boyega, Ridley and Isaac, the film surfaces some dynamite chemistry that elevates a series of chases through space, through forests, through busted-up tunnels and over deserts. On foot, in little ships, in big ships, they scoot and hustle and crack satisfyingly wise while something blows up right over there and juuuuust misses them.”