I was born in Washington DC and grew up in Los Angeles.
Since then, I’ve lived in Iowa, Nicaragua, New Haven, and (currently) Brooklyn. I’ve worked as a baker, an office temp, an innkeeper, a tutor, and a medical actor. Every one of these was a world; they’re still in me. These days I teach at the Columbia University MFA program, where I direct the nonfiction concentration.
My new book, a collection of essays called Make It Scream, Make It Burn, came out in September 2019. I’ve also written a novel, The Gin Closet, a collection of essays, The Empathy Exams, and a critical memoir, The Recovering. My work has appeared in places including The New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, Oxford American, A Public Space, Virginia Quarterly Review, and The Believer.
