JOURNALISM

Selected writings from The Atlantic, New York magazine and
The New York Times

Featured
The Ones We Sent Away
The Ones We Sent Away

August 7, 2023, The Atlantic. I thought my mother was an only child. I was wrong.

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What Bobby McIlvaine Left Behind
What Bobby McIlvaine Left Behind

August 9, 2021 The Atlantic: Grief, conspiracy theories, and one family's search for meaning in the two decades since 9/11. Winner of the 2022 Pulitzer Prize and National Magazine Award for Feature Writing.

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It's Your Friends Who Break Your Heart
It's Your Friends Who Break Your Heart

February 9, 2022, The Atlantic. The Older we get, the more we need our friends—and the harder it is to keep them.

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Mothers All Over Are Losing it
Mothers All Over Are Losing it

Feb 24, 2021, New York Times column. Pandemic life has made us feel more insecure about the aspects of parenting we were already most insecure about.

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Happiness Won't Save You
Happiness Won't Save You

Nov. 24, 2020, New York Times Philip Brickman was an expert in the psychology of happiness, but he couldn't make his own pain go away. Anthologized in the Best American Science and Nature Writing of 2021.

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Why Fox News is Still in a Coronavirus Bubble
Why Fox News is Still in a Coronavirus Bubble

October 5, 2020 New York Times column

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More People Will Be Fired in the Pandemic
More People Will Be Fired in the Pandemic

June 14, 2020 New York Times Column. Let's Talk About It: For starters, don't do it on Zoom. And consider not doing it at all.

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Camp is Canceled. Three More Months of Family Time. Help.
Camp is Canceled. Three More Months of Family Time. Help.

May 24, 2020 New York Times column. We're homemakers, stay-at-home parents, and paid workers. All at the same time.

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Farewell, Office. You were the Last Boundary Between Work and Home
Farewell, Office. You were the Last Boundary Between Work and Home

May 17, 2020 New York Times column. Your workplace shaped your identity in ways you never knew.

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What One Doctor's Suicide Taught Us
What One Doctor's Suicide Taught Us

May 3, 2020 New York Times column. Physicians are perfectionists who suffer in silence

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In Praise of Pessimism
In Praise of Pessimism

April 26 2020, New York Times column. This country is going to need its Eeyores.

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Welcome to Marriage During the Coronavirus
Welcome to Marriage During the Coronavirus

March 16, 2020 New York Times column. Remember, both of you are right.

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Our Brains Aren't Designed to Handle the Trump Era
Our Brains Aren't Designed to Handle the Trump Era

Feb 9, 2019 New York Times column. Or mine isn't, anyway.

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Comedian Hospitalized for Depression. Hilarity Ensues.
Comedian Hospitalized for Depression. Hilarity Ensues.

November 14, 2019 New York Times column. Gary Gulman is showing us how to bring our inner selves out into the open.

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Teen Fiction and the Perils of Cancel Culture
Teen Fiction and the Perils of Cancel Culture

March 8, 2019 New York Times column. Readers, not a Twitter mob, should decide the fate of a book.

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What Do We Give Up When We Become Freedom Seeking Entrepreneurs? A Lot, Actually.
What Do We Give Up When We Become Freedom Seeking Entrepreneurs? A Lot, Actually.

January 6, 2015 New York Magazine

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Featured
American Rasputin
American Rasputin

June 6, 2022, The Atlantic. Steve Bannon is still scheming. And he's still a threat to democracy.

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The Women Who Paved the Way for Marjorie Taylor Greene
The Women Who Paved the Way for Marjorie Taylor Greene

Feb 7, 2021 New York Times column She's the latest descendant in a lineage of Republican women who embrace a boffo radicalism.

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Good Riddance, Leader McConnell
Good Riddance, Leader McConnell

January 19, 2021 New York Times column, The judgment of history will be damning.

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The Narcissist in Chief Brings it All Crashing Down
The Narcissist in Chief Brings it All Crashing Down

January 10, 2021 New York Times column. An ending as terrible as it was predictable engulfs the president and the country.

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Republicans, Now is the Time to Step Up
Republicans, Now is the Time to Step Up

November 6, 2020 New York Times column. : It's not too late to end up on the right side of history.

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The President has Made Selfishness Our National Credo

October 30, 2020 New York Times column What we have lost

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Why Fox News is Still in a Coronavirus Bubble
Why Fox News is Still in a Coronavirus Bubble

October 5, 2020 New York Times column

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"Meet Joe Biden, the Wild Stallion"
"Meet Joe Biden, the Wild Stallion"

August 15, 2020 New York Times (long form). He's not out on the campaign trail now, but when he was a young man in a hurry, he told us who he was.

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Trump's Napalm Politics? They Began with Newt.
Trump's Napalm Politics? They Began with Newt.

June 28, 2020 New York Times column Gingrich wrote the playbook for it all. The nastiness, the contempt for norms, the transformation of political opponents into enemies.

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America's Aspiring Autocrat is in the Home Stretch. How Worried Should We Be?
America's Aspiring Autocrat is in the Home Stretch. How Worried Should We Be?

June 21, 2020 New York Times column Beware a despot when he's cornered.

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This is What Happens When a Narcissist Runs a Crisis
This is What Happens When a Narcissist Runs a Crisis

April 5, 2020 New York Times column Trump's catastrophic performance has as much to do with psychology as ideology.

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Trump to New York: Drop Dead
Trump to New York: Drop Dead

March 24, 2020 New York Times column Untold thousands will likely die, absent federal intervention. And it needs to happen this instant. Why won't the president help?

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President Trump is Unfit for This Crisis. Period.
President Trump is Unfit for This Crisis. Period.

March 9, 2020 New York Times column His narcissism is a grave danger to our health.

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We Are All at the Mercy of the Narcissist in Chief
We Are All at the Mercy of the Narcissist in Chief

October 11, 2019 New York Times column. To say that we find ourselves in a dysfunctional relationship is an understatement.

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The Anti-Clinton Brigade's Four-Letter Word Obsession
The Anti-Clinton Brigade's Four-Letter Word Obsession

October 13, 2016 New York Times Book Review (essay)

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Featured
Hillary Clinton Opens Up About "What Happened" With Candor, Defiance, and Dark Humor
Hillary Clinton Opens Up About "What Happened" With Candor, Defiance, and Dark Humor

Sept 12, 2017

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"Dying: A Memoir" is a Bracing Illumination of Terminal Illness
"Dying: A Memoir" is a Bracing Illumination of Terminal Illness

July 26, 2017

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In "Memory's Last Breath," Remembering Life, Before It's Too Late
In "Memory's Last Breath," Remembering Life, Before It's Too Late

June 22, 2017

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Having Trouble Having It All? Ivanka Alone Can Fix It.
Having Trouble Having It All? Ivanka Alone Can Fix It.

May 2, 2017

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Elizabeth Strout's Lovely New Novel is a Requiem for Small-Town Pain
Elizabeth Strout's Lovely New Novel is a Requiem for Small-Town Pain

April 26 2017

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"Locking Up Our Own," What Led to Mass Incarceration of Black Men
"Locking Up Our Own," What Led to Mass Incarceration of Black Men

April 11, 2017

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"Richard Nixon": Portrait of a Thin-Skinned, Media-Hating President
"Richard Nixon": Portrait of a Thin-Skinned, Media-Hating President

March 29, 2017

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She Is Best Known for "Goodnight Moon," But Her Life Was Filled with Color Too
She Is Best Known for "Goodnight Moon," But Her Life Was Filled with Color Too

January 25, 2017

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"Homo Deus" Foresees a Godlike Future. (Ignore the Techno Overlords.)
"Homo Deus" Foresees a Godlike Future. (Ignore the Techno Overlords.)

Feb 15, 2017

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"A Really Good Day," Ayelet Waldman's Better Living Through LSD
"A Really Good Day," Ayelet Waldman's Better Living Through LSD

January 11, 2017

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Michael Lewis on Two Well-Matched (but Finally Mismatched) Men
Michael Lewis on Two Well-Matched (but Finally Mismatched) Men

Dec 1, 2016

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In Ann Patchett's "Commonwealth," Knotting and Unknotting the Ties That Bind
In Ann Patchett's "Commonwealth," Knotting and Unknotting the Ties That Bind

Sept 7. 2016

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In "Ordinarily Well." Peter Kramer Goes to the Antidepressant Ramparts
In "Ordinarily Well." Peter Kramer Goes to the Antidepressant Ramparts

June 6, 2016

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"The Vanishing Velasquez" Tells of Art Obsession
"The Vanishing Velasquez" Tells of Art Obsession

April 10. 2016

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Siddhartha Mukherjee's "The Gene," a Molecular Pursuit of the Self
Siddhartha Mukherjee's "The Gene," a Molecular Pursuit of the Self

May 8, 2016

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In "Evicted," Home is an Elusive Goal for America's Poor
In "Evicted," Home is an Elusive Goal for America's Poor

Feb 21, 2016

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In "The Confidence Game," by Maria Konnikova, the Siren Call of the Swindler
In "The Confidence Game," by Maria Konnikova, the Siren Call of the Swindler

January 14, 2016

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Facing Marriage and Befriending a Squirrel in "The Portable Veblen"
Facing Marriage and Befriending a Squirrel in "The Portable Veblen"

Jan 27, 2016

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Casey Schwartz's "In the Mind Fields" Considers the Brain, on the Couch and in the Lab
Casey Schwartz's "In the Mind Fields" Considers the Brain, on the Couch and in the Lab

December 16, 2015

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"Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg"
"Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg"

October 25, 2015

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In "Empire of the Self: A Life of Gore Vidal," Jay Parini Catalogues More Than Illuminates
In "Empire of the Self: A Life of Gore Vidal," Jay Parini Catalogues More Than Illuminates

October 18, 2015

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