ESSAYS & MISCELLANY
"Get Me Rewrite," MotherJones.com, May 14, 2004
"Not That Song," The Next Big Thing, February 27, 2004
"Things Never Said At Manhattan Parties," ReallySmallTalk.Com
"The Things We Carry," Harper's Magazine, June 2001
"A Melancholy of Mine Own," in Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression, edited by Nell Casey (William Morrow) (If you own this book, click here.)
"America's Altered States," Harper's Magazine, May 1999
LINCOLN PIECES
"Lincoln's Great Depression," The Atlantic Monthly, October 2005
"The True Lincoln," Time Magazine, July 4, 2005
"EUREKA DEPT. The Suicide Poem," The New Yorker, June 17-24, 2004
"Newly Discovered Poem Likely Lincoln's," Talk of the Nation, June 9, 2004
Interview with Dean Olsher, The Next Big Thing, July 18, 2003
"Being Abe Lincoln," The Atlantic Monthly, February 2002
"Beyond a Black-and-White Lincoln," The New York Times, April 7, 2002 (review essay on Suzan-Lori Parks's Topdog/Underdog and The America Play)
"The Myth of Lincoln, Reconstructed," The American Prospect, February 26, 2001
FICTION
"The Agent and the Goat" from the Dog & Pony Show
ARTICLES & REVIEWS
"Living to Tell the Tale," Mother Jones, May/June 2005 (interview with JonathanSafran Foer)
"Don't Get Too Comfortable," Mother Jones, July/August 2004 (interview with Sarah Jones)
"THANKS VERY MUCH AND GOODNIGHT: Last Lines From Works by Spalding Gray (1941 - 2004)," ReallySmallTalk.com
"Beyond Anger," MotherJones.com, July 16, 2004
"Think Different," Mother Jones, May/June 2003 (review of Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use, by Jacob Sullum)"Club Mad," The Washington Post, May 22, 2002 (review of Gracefully Insane: The Rise and Fall of America's Premier Mental Hospital, by Alex Beam)
"The Talking Curse," The Washington Post, January 20, 2002 (review of The Thief of Happiness: The Story of an Extraordinary Psychotherapy, by Bonnie Friedman)
"Reassigning
Tim Russert," The Washington Monthly, March 2001
"Memories
of Genocide," The New York Times, June 11, 2000 (review of
When Broken Glass Floats by Chanrithy Him and First They Killed
My Father by Loung Um)
"The Enigmatic President," The Washington Post, March 5, 2000 (review
of Lincoln: A Foreigner's Quest, by Jan Morris)
"Notes on the Past," The Washington Post, October 25, 1999 (review
of The Real American Dream: A Meditation on Hope, by Andrew Delbanco
and Building a Bridge to the Eighteenth Century: How the Past Can Improve
Our Future, by Neil Postman)
"An
Old City Seeks A New Model" The Nation. September 20, 1999
"Guided by Voices," The Washington Post, July 18, 1999 (review
of Transforming Madness: New Lives for People Living With Mental Illness,
by Jay Neugeboren)
"Guns and Roses, The Nation, June 14, 1999 (review of Mayhem:
Violence as Public Entertainment, by Sissela Bok; The Dark Side
of the Man: Tracing the Origins of Male Violence, by Michael Ghiglieri;
Lost Boys: Why Our Sons Turn Violent and How We Can Save Them,
by James Garbarino; and Bad Boys, Bad Men: Confronting Antisocial Personality
Disorder, by Donald Black)
"The Glamour Trap," The Washington Monthly, March 1999 (review
of Neil Gabler's Life The Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality)
"A Flaming Red-Rock Chick," GQ, January 1999 (a profile of Patty
Griffin)
"Carving a Sign to Show the World Their Pain," The Washington Post,
December 7, 1998 (review of A Bright Red Scream: Self-Mutilation and
the Language of Pain, by Marilee Strong)
"Artificial Paradise." The Washington Post, October 18, 1998 (a
review of Lauren Slater's Prozac Diary)
"A Doctor's Descent Into Drug Addiction," The Washington Post,
August 24, 1998 (a review of Abraham Verghese's The Tennis Partner)
"Drug Crazy," Washington Monthly, July 17, 1998 (review of Mike
Gray's Drug Crazy: How We Got Into This Mess and How We Can Get Out)
REPORTS FROM WASHINGTON, D.C. (1994 - 1998)
EARLIER WORKS (1993)
"A Pope of the Press," Harvard Magazine, November-December 1993.
"Out
of Little Acorns," Harvard Magazine, May/June 1993
"Endangered
Feces," The Nose, Issue #15, 1993