I am a widely published critic and essayist. I write a column about crime books for the Washington Post Book World; I am also a contributing editor at Lit Hub and a founding editor of Crime Reads. My book, FUNERAL IN MY BRAIN: A BIOGRAPHY OF MIGRAINE (under contract to St Martin's), looks at the history, science, and art of migraine through the work of migraineurs from Freud and Darwin to Sylvia Plath and Oliver Sacks. FUNERAL also chronicles my descent into chronic migraine in 2003.
Selected work
Adrian McKinty: Working-Class Hero of Irish Crime Fiction
Literary Hub, 2016
Savage Appetites; Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers review - The TLS
The Times Literary Supplement (TLS), 2020
The Great Hipster Mystery: Defining a Canon
Crime Reads, 2019
Jim Jones: Charismatic Micromanager, Gifted Preacher, Lunatic
Crime Reads, 2017
The Fine Grim Line Between Love and Stalking
Literary Hub, 2016
Gillian Flynn Is the Real Gone Girl
Crime Reads, 2022
Why Did Two 12-Year-Olds Try to Murder a Friend?
The New York Times, 2022
Review | In pandemic-fueled thrillers, the danger is in the house
Washington Post, 2023
Review | Women take on bad men in a new wave of dark-comedy crime novels
Washington Post, 2024
Review | Fiction writers are learning the tricks of true crime
Washington Post, 2023
(Re) An Ideas Journal
(Re) Ideas, 2020
An American in Toronto: Everything changed just as this writer started calling the city home | CBC Arts
CBC, 2020
Weight and Dates
2020
My Never-Ending Migraine
Elemental, 2019
My failed analysis gave me confidence and taught me when to quit | Psyche Ideas
Psyche, 2020
How to Write a Pain Book
Literary Hub, 2022
The people vs. Courtney Love
Salon, 2006
The Underappreciated Genius of ‘Justified’
Crime Reads, 2019
Breaking Up With the Bachelor
Avidly, 2018
Rape Stories Are Crime Stories
Crime Reads, 2018
On Rape Culture in Crime Fiction
Crime Reads, 2017
In Defense of Trash
Literary Hub, 2016
We’re Living in the Joan Rivers Age of Comedy
The New Republic, 2016
Groupies Deserve More Credit | The Walrus
The Walrus, 2022
Is This Any Fun? - Believer Magazine
The Believer, 2011
Why Does Everyone Love It But Me? An Interview with Daniel Mendelsohn
The Millions, 2012
Sexual consent | TLS
The Times Literary Supplement (TLS), 2020
The Dark and Dreamy Noir of The Great Gatsby
Crime Reads, 2019
A Peaceful, but Very Interesting Pursuit - The Rumpus
The Rumpus, 2012
The Generic Life
Full Stop, 2014
How To Think More (But Not Better): Alain de Botton’s School of Life | Los Angeles Review of Books
Los Angeles Review of Books, 2013
Cogito Ergo Boom: Susan Sontag’s Journals | Los Angeles Review of Books
Los Angeles Review of Books, 2012
Critical Intimacy
The Believer, 2006
"An Original Adventure"
The Believer, 2008
"We Are All Modern: Exploring the Vagaries of Consciousness in 20th & 21st Century Biography and Life Writing
2022
The Unrest | LIGEIA Magazine
2021