photo: Beowulf Sheehan
I’m a writer and journalist who has contributed to news organizations including Slate, VICE, Men’s Journal, The Classical, Wired and the PBS show Frontline/World. I received master’s degrees in journalism and international affairs from UC Berkeley. Originally from Seattle, I now live in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of New York City with my wife.
My first book, The Hustle: One Team and Ten Lives in Black and White, was published in 2011. It’s the true story of what happened to the members of an interracial basketball team I played on as a kid in Seattle in the mid-1980s. Given that I had no idea how to write a book when I started, and that some of the guys were quite hard to find, it took me eight years to finish. Thankfully, it got a good reception.
I’m now at work on a new book about the culture and business of Mixed Martial Arts, following a group of elite fighters through the ups and downs of their careers.
I’m primarily interested the ways people find meaning in our fragmented culture. I prefer to do “immersion” reporting, spending as much time with a person or group as a possibly can, experiencing day-to-day life as they do.
Below are links to some of my work:
Mixed Martial Arts:
Jeff Monson Gets Naked in Russia with a Guy in a Bear Suit (Fightland)
A Prospect in Iowa (Fightland)
Selected journalism:
Most journalism is of little interest a day or at most a week after it’s published. The pieces linked below are a few that I think remain worthwhile.
Rwanda: After the Genocide – Heavily reported piece on the country’s attempts to pick up the pieces ten years later. I frequently think about the experience of reporting this piece and the people I interviewed (Frontline/World).
Roma v. Romania – The long legal aftermath of a night of anti-Gypsy violence in post-Communist Romania (Legal Affairs).
Charles Taylor’s Long Goodbye – The Liberian warlord faces justice (Slate).
Blog Posts
Revisiting Larry Bird and Magic Johnson
Culture and Society:
Interview with Ari Kohn: On Life after Prison
Cornel West on the Socractic and Prophetic Traditions, the Blues, and Democracy
Interview with Hudson Taylor: Fighting Homophobia in Athletics
A few music links:
Johnny “Guitar” Watson, “Mister Magic”
Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra, “The Lady is a Tramp”
Contact
If you want to get in touch, please use the e-mail link on this page or drop me a note through Facebook or Twitter.
