Articles
2020 - 2025
How to Get the Quiet Ones to Speak Up Chronicle of Higher Education
December 1, 2025The AI-Resistant Classroom New York Times Magazine
November 25, 2025The Impression That I Get Hilobrow
November 7, 2025It’s Okay to Hate The House of Mirth Literary Hub
September 2, 2025Laying Down Roots New York Times Magazine
June 15, 2025Smoother Grooves Hilobrow
April 11, 2025The Work and the Business Raritan
Fall 2024A Tempo Virginia Quarterly Review
Fall, 2024The Player of Games Hilobrow
July 13, 2024Robocop Hilobrow
April 12, 2024Jerry Was a Race Car Driver Hilobrow
January 25, 2024Crossing Chicago Strangers Guide
July, 2023Valerie Bertinelli Hilobrow
April 7, 2023Out in the Country New York Times Magazine
February 19, 2023The Worm Ouroboros The New York Times Magazine
January 4, 2023The Thrill Is Back Washington Post Magazine
July 24, 2022Foreword Wherever I'm At: An Anthology of Chicago Poetry
June, 2022Barney Miller Hilobrow
April 7, 2022All the Way Washington Post Magazine
April 3, 2022A Stance, An Attitude Raritan
Spring 2022Belt Bearers Hilobrow
January 13, 2022Boxing Lessons Virginia Quarterly Review
Winter 2021Daena Adams [7 True Stories From Virtual School] New York Times Magazine
September 9, 2021Mannix Hilobrow
April 29, 2021The Queen’s Gamble Washington Post Magazine
February 7, 2021Do it Right/Make It New Post Road Magazine guest folio
Winter 2020The Meaning of a College Literature Class Washington Post Magazine
October 25, 2020What Joe Biden Could Learn From the Baby-Faced Assassin Politico
October 22, 2020The Return of Cheatin’ Songs Washington Post Magazine
July 18, 2020The Omega Man Hilobrow
February 12, 2020
2010 - 2019
Kung Fu Hilobrow
August 23, 2019The Unexpected Power of Your Old Neighborhood The New Yorker
May 22, 2019Tone Bar Hilobrow
May 8, 2019Otis Rush New York Times Magazine
December 30, 2018A Tough Crowd in Doboj Literary Hub
October 12, 2018Roy Dotrice New York Times Magazine
December 25, 2017Smokeless Ringside Seat 1:1
June, 2017Charles Portis's Gringos Public Books
April 21, 2017Kimbo Slice New York Times Magazine
December 25, 2016Want to Visit the Jazz Age? Try Fight Night in Vegas New York Times
December 9, 2016Foreword Jack Vance, Cugel: The Skybreak Spatterlight, Spatterlight Press
2016 [1983]Hurtin' (On the Bottle): Margo Price New York Times Magazine
March 13, 2016The Pipe Fitter New York Times Magazine
February 26, 2016Buddy Emmons New York Times Magazine
December 27, 2015No Dragons, No Zombies Washington Post Magazine
August 2, 2015Everything at Once New York Times Magazine
August 2, 2015The Inevitable Spectacle of Mayweather vs. Pacquiao New York Times Magazine
May 1, 2015Leading With His Head New York Times Magazine
November 2, 2014Kacey Musgraves’s Arrow Is Pointing Up The 6th Floor, New York Times Magazine
September 15, 2013No Child Left Untableted New York Times Magazine
September 12, 2013The Landscape of Home Our Boston: Writers Celebrate the City They Love, ed. Andrew Blauner, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
2013Jack Vance’s Influential Prose Will Live On The 6th Floor, New York Times Magazine
May 20, 2013Kacey Musgraves' Rebel Twang New York Times Magazine
March 17, 2013Kacey Musgraves Sings Not-for-Grandma Country Music The 6th Floor, New York Times Magazine
March 13, 2013Hector ‘Macho’ Camacho New York Times Magazine
December 30, 2012The Wire at Ten: The Case Against Kojak Liberalism Points: The Blog of the Alcohol and Drugs History Society
November 12, 2012Book Notes: Playing in Time LargeheartedBoy.com
November 2, 2012Bedtime Story Wordplaysound.com
November, 2012The Dogs of South Shore The Coffin Factory
September 12, 2012Hollywood on the Charles Boston
January, 2012So Many Fearsome Contemporaries New York Times Magazine
December 25, 2011A Darker Shade of Green New York Times Magazine
August 15, 2011A Wild Mind Loose in Suburbia New York Times Magazine
April 24, 2011Foreword, George Kimball, Manly Art McBooks Press
April 2011Manute Bol, 1962-2010 Washington Post Magazine
December 26, 2010The Professor of Micropopularity New York Times Magazine
November 28, 2010True to 'True Grit' New York Times Magazine
October 12, 2010Anytime, Anywhere New York Times Magazine
September 19, 2010Ghosts in My Town: Writers on American Cities (U.S. State Department)
2010The Long Shot Washington Post Magazine
March 21, 2010Class Warrior The New Yorker
February 1, 2010On the Basketball Court with Arne Duncan The New Yorker
January 26, 2010
2000 - 2009
Arturo Gatti: On the Ropes New York Times Magazine
December 27, 2009The Mouse Sled Washington Post Magazine
November 22, 2009Desperately Seeking Deval Boston
September, 2009The Genre Artist Reprinted as the introduction to Humayoun Ibrahim, Jack Vance: The Moon Moth (First Second, 2012): iii-xii. In German: “Der Genre-Künstler,” Jack Vance: Weltenschöpfer und Wortschmied, ed. Andreas Irle (Edition Andreas Irle, 2016): 391-404., New York Times Magazine
July 19, 2009Crime Story Washington Post Magazine
July 20, 2008And Now, the Biggest Entertainer in Entertainment Received the Barney Award from the Boxing Writers Association of America, for the best feature over 2500 words published in 2008, Play: The New York Times Sports Magazine
June 1, 2008Abolitionists of Mars Raritan 26.3
Winter 2007Sucker Punch: The Art, the Poetry, the Idiocy of YouTube Street Fights Slate
November 26, 2007When the Gloves Came Off Boston, Received the Barney Award from the Boxing Writers Association of America, for the best feature over 2500 words published in 2007.
October 26, 2007The Regulars Yale Alumni Magazine
July/August 2007Pulp History Raritan 27.1
Summer 2007Boxing’s Big Night: What Was It We Saw? NYTimes.com Play Newsletter
May 10, 2007Shannon Briggs Says Nyet New York Times Magazine
April 15, 2007The Two Jameses The Believer
April 2007The Elements of Providence Washington Post Magazine
September 17, 2006Can a Book of Quotations Include Cher, MC Hammer, and “Get a Life”? Yale Alumni Magazine
September/October, 2006The Kingdom and the Power Boston
June 16, 2006Into South Shore city, 3 Book City Publishing
2006Breaking the Tantrum Cycle Yale Alumnia Magazine
September/October 2005Mirror, Mirror Shadow Boxers: Sweat, Sacrifice, and the Will To Survive in American Boxing Gyms, photographs by Jim Lomasson, Stone Creek Press
2005Three Landscapes, with Gamblers Listed as a Notable Essay of 2005 in The Best American Essays 2006, ed. Lauren Slater and Robert Atwan (Houghton Mifflin, 2006), TriQuarterly 121
2005Youth & Consequences Yale Alumni Magazine
January/February 2005Un Clown Biologique The American Scholar 73.4, Listed as a Notable Essay of 2004 in The Best American Essays 2005, ed. Susan Orlean and Robert Atwan (Houghton Mifflin, 2005)
Fall 2004Edge of Greatness Yale Alumni Magazine, cover
July/August 2004Someone Else’s Chicago Washington Post Magazine
March 7, 2004Someone Else's Chicago Washigton Post Magazine
March 7, 2004Linwood Taylor's Blues Washington Post Magazine
August 24, 2003Affliction The American Scholar 71.1
Winter 2002Champion at Twilight Washington Post Magazine. Reprinted in At the Fights: An American Boxing Anthology, ed. George Kimball and John Schulian (Library of America, 2011): 484-499
November 17, 2002A Distinctly Bluesy Condition The American Scholar 71.4
Fall 2002Playing in Time Washington Post Magazine
June 30, 2002“Blues, Boxing, and Work,” in “Hard-Hitting Blues,” a special issue on blues and boxing Popmatters…A Magazine of Global Culture
June 2002Cusp of Seasons Washington Post Magazine Summer Reading Issues
July 30, 2000Cut Time The American Scholar 69.2, Reprinted in Best American Essays 2001, ed. Kathleen Norris and Robert Atwan (Houghton Mifflin, 2001). Received two prizes from The American Scholar: Best Essay, 2000; Best Work by a Younger Writer, 2000
Spring 2000An Appetite for Hitting Washington Post Magazine
February 20, 2000