WRITING
If I made a balance sheet for every film project I’ve tackled, 90 percent of the work would sit under writing. Pitching is writing. Researching is writing. Scripting, interviewing, storyboarding, editing, and directing are all forms of writing. Even behind the camera, I’m structuring a narrative.
The selection below is some of my published stuff, including a feature print article for Popular Science and my American Guide project, one of the most popular Tumblr blogs in the 2010s (back when that meant something).
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How to Send Messages 10,000 Years in the Future
This feature story of mine appears in the Summer 2019, “Out There” issue of Popular Science. Maybe it’s hard to believe, but linguists, designers, and scientists are dreaming up ways to break a language barrier that doesn’t exist (yet). It’s a divide between now and how we can communicate with a future thousands of years away. Obviously, I reference the Statue of Liberty scene in Planet of the Apes. (Artwork by Tim McDonagh.)
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PopSci's Encyclopedia of Cats
This online feature of mine for Popular Science in 2021 is a newsletter-style dive into random curiosities about felines of all shapes and sizes, starting with the incredible true story of “Frasier the Sensuous Lion.”
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This Ancient Optical Illusion is a 14,000-Year-Old Puzzle
This story of mine appears in the Spring 2020, “Origins” issue of Popular Science. If you’re familiar with the duck/rabbit or vase/face tricks of the eye, try staring at this image. What do you see—a mammoth or a bison? More than just illusions, this article is also about how the human brain processes information.
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The American Guide
From 2012 to 2015, I ran The American Guide—a featured Tumblr project with over 175,000 subscribers. It was a crowdsourced collection from hundreds of dedicated contributors exploring the unique tensions and allure of existence in these here United States, and inspired by the mission of a 1930s Federal Writers Project series of the same name. I created and edited the project—which included daily, originally-reported articles and photo essays—as well as managed the all-volunteer staff.
It was featured by The Atlantic and Oxford American magazine. In 2014, The American Guide was named one of the best independent travel magazines by The Guardian.