Writing

Some Recent Favorites

  • Beyond the Final Frontier

    “It is archaeology seen in real time, a calling card of sorts to the cosmos: Here on Earth, we have transcended the boundaries of the planet. … With ingenuity and desire, we have extended the environment of our planet into space.”

    Read at NYT Mag

  • Uncertain Contact

    “Alien life may not be something we ever ‘find’, but instead inch towards, ever closer, like a curve approaching its asymptote. For all our desire to know who’s out there, that may have to be enough.”

    Read at Aeon

  • Surely There Must Be Someone Out There In All That Space

    “The places in JWST’s first images are not places for us. But … we can give in to the alienation and embrace the loneliness, let it transmute into a new kind of awe.”

    Read at Slate

Essays & Features

Criticism, Reviews, & Interviews

Here’s everything:

New York Times Magazine: Befouling the Final Frontier

Aeon: Uncertain Contact

Slate: Surely There Must Be Someone Out There In All That Space

Catapult: The Beautiful Ego Death of Having My Book Fact-Checked

Catapult: Like Being a Good-Enough Mother, Being a Good-Enough Writer Is Enough

Slate: What the Olympics’ Alien-Meets-Astronaut Ice Dancing Routine Says About First Contact

Catapult: Teaching Freshman Comp Was the Best Writing Education I Ever Got

Slate: The Agony of Parents of Children Under 5

Slate: Here's the Real Deal on Flurona

Slate: Why Astronomers Are “Crying and Throwing Up Everywhere” Over the Upcoming Telescope Launch

Catapult: What If We Taught Writing the Way We Teach Acting?

Slate: If the Earth Isn't Special, Then the Whole Cosmos Is

Southwest: Once in a Babymoon

The Cut: I Love My Weird Pregnancy Skin-Care Routine

Popular Science: Could astrobiology research convince us to fight climate change?

Frere-Jones Type: Archaeology and Invention: Designing Empirica

Backstage: Ben Foster Crams a Life’s Worth of Experience Into Every Role

Medium: The Strangely Human Messages We Send To Aliens
How We Imagine Aliens
Something Incredible Waiting to Be Known
Are We Really Alone?

Electric Literature: Why We Still Need Aunt Beast

The Cut: Yoga Pants Are the Best Pants

BuzzFeed Books: Who Gets A Happily Ever After In 2018?

Electric Literature: I Spent 24 Hours Reading Last Weekend and I Didn’t Lose My Mind

Brooklyn Magazine: “When People Ask for Advice”: My Brother, My Brother, and Me Brings Their Good-Guy Podcast to TV

Catapult: Reading for an Audience

Longreads: The Fullness of a Moment

American Theatre online: Dancing on the Edge

The Toast: The French Toast Test

The Rumpus: Aftermath

The Cossack: A Guide to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (print)

Everyday Genius: Dirty Hands

The Awl: Embrace Your Prairie Looks and Make Some Applesauce