I grew up in Baltimore, in a tight-knit family of German and Czech immigrants. I got an education in the D.C. punk scene and Riot Grrrl, and I earned a bachelor's degree at Towson State in the Baltimore suburbs, where I studied Virginia Woolf, Black feminism, art history and French.

In the first part of my career, I did journalism in NYC. Wall Street Journal publications, Men’s Journal, Radar, Inc., Hearst publications, and Brooklyn Rail.  I copy-chiefed for almost every magazine that ever existed, and I loved laboring over page proofs. I covered music regularly for Time Out New York for about a decade — this was sheer joy. When I moved to Silicon Valley in 2015, I spent two years at a media startup and then built a career for myself in content marketing.

I went to Catholic school from pre-K through grade 12 and learned grammar from actual nuns. Only one or two of them hit kids with rulers. I’ve read all 72 Nero Wolfe books. McNally Jackson Books on Prince and Housing Works on Crosby are holy places. NYC is home, but in Silicon Valley I see coyotes, bobcats and rattlesnakes more than I see rats. I appreciate that. I speak French fluently and stay semi-competent in German through podcasts and Berlin-based friends on Twitter. 

Whatever Happened to Eddy Crane (Hanover Square Press), a memoir about my father's 1987 murder and the years I spent trying to understand it, will be published in 2024.