About Me

I’m a veteran journalist who has worked at or written for everyone from Esquire, to GQ, The New Yorker, New York, The Boston Globe, Entrepreneur, Wired and so forth, on everything from politics, to travel, to social science, business, and technology.

My first book, The Power of Strangers, dug deep into why we don’t talk to strangers, why we should, and how we can—drawing on hundreds of academic studies, books, and interviews. I have since given dozens of talks and led seminars for companies, universities, political groups, and nonprofits, on the art of connecting with people you don’t know. If you’d like to talk abut how I might help you, drop me an email.

My second book, The Lemon: A Novel, which I co-wrote under the pseudonym S.E. Boyd, won the 2024 Thurber Prize for American Humor. It explores the perils of celebrity in media, Hollywood, and the fine dining world. My co-authors and I are currently developing it for television, along with several other projects.

What else? I’m also a longtime bassist, enthusiastic-if-mediocre-long distance cyclist, and an unreasonably avid parallel parker. Born in the Boston area, I currently reside in New York City with my family.