Selected Writing

In the last year or so I’ve written about an Anne Frank-related short comedy (yep!), Barbie (of course), Joan Baez (of course), feminist dystopias, Julia Quinn and Bridgerton, and parenting alongside my twin.

A few of my best-known/favorite/once-viral articles from the vault are about shopping at Lord and Taylor, #MeToo on Birthright Israel, Jewish women and abortion, Women and queer folks protesting at Occupy Wall Street then and now, Jewish women and Hollywood, Jane Austen, dressing up like Jane Austen, and a parody of Jane Austen.

A further selection of my favorite clips from over the years is below! Enjoy and shoot me a line if there’s a broken link.

Essays and screeds op-eds.

• Not All Religious People Oppose Abortion, New York Times Opinion, 2021
• Why Jewish Roles Rarely Go to Jewish Actors, TIME, 2021
• Goodbye to Lord and Taylor, and the Way we Used to Shop, New York Times Opinion, 2020
• Christine Blasey Ford and the Myth of the Weak Victim, Cosmopolitan, 2018
• #MeToo Has Debunked the ‘Lean In’ Philosophy , The Nation, 2017
• Want to End Harassment? Start by Pushing Back on Bullying, The Nation, 2017
• Take it From a New Mom: Universal Health Care Would Mean Freedom, Especially for Women, Glamour, 2017.
• We’ve Stopped Even Pretending to Care About Children, Jezebel, 2017
• From Ruth Bader Ginsburg to Lena to Hillary, Let 2016 Be the Year the Memefying of Women Ended, Flavorwire, 2016
• Occupiers aren’t running for office. They have their sights set higher–Washington Post Outlook, 2011

Fiction.

• “We Help Women Here”,” a short story, The Normal School, Fall 2015
• “What to Do in Paris,” A story about a lonely widow in the City of Love. Storychord, 2015.
• “A Catch,” a story about amorous confusion in Ireland, Serving House Journal, 2015
• “Giving Grace Away” a story told by a wedding guest, was one of four stories honored out of over 1,000 in the Flavorwire Fiction Contest in 2014.
• “Balcony” a short story about a girl absent from a party. fwriction : review, April 2014.
• “Ironing,” Lilith Magazine fiction contest winter, 2013.
• “Empty Nest,” A short story about a crumbling marriage, Joyland, a hub for short fiction, Oct. 3, 2012
• “Pool Party,” A short short about a “dead girl in a jacuzzi,” –S-Tick, August 16, 2013

Reporting and features.

• Birthright Israel and #MeToo. A deep investigation with Jewish Currents and the Investigative Fund. 2018.
• Poets Protest Guns in the Classroom. Poets & Writers, 2018.
• Can The Weinstein Co. Be Saved? The Women Putting Their Money On It. Refinery29, 2018.
• Three Million of Hillary’s Biggest Supporters Found Each Other in a Secret Facebook Group, The Nation, 2016
• Teaching Trigger Warnings: What Pundits Don’t Understand About the Year’s Most Controversial Higher Ed Debate, Flavorwire, 2015
• We Need Diverse Books: Can Children’s Authors End Publishing Industry Prejudice— and Change the Way America Reads? Flavorwire, 2015
• When Jewish Transgender Teens Come Out of Closet, Many Leave Camp Behind–The Jewish Daily Forward, 2013
• Replacement for a Child Lost. A profile of memoirist Judy Mandel, The Forward, 2013
• Hacking J-Date to Find the Perfect Jewish Hubby. A profile of tech guru Amy Webb, The Forward, 2013
• Women Occupy, Ms. Magazine, 2012.
• Where Are the Women at Occupy Wall Street? Everywhere—and They’re not Going Away–The Nation.com, 2011
• “Enlightened Sexism’ in Media Obscures Reality, Women’s eNews, 2010
• To AP or Not to AP, on the future of the standardized test–NY Family Magazine, 2007

Cultural Criticism.

• The Most Honest Coming of Age Story This Year is About a Sexually Repressed Bookworm, Jezebel, 2017
• Namaste, Screw You; Yoga, Now Mainstream, Inspires a Backlash, Flavorwire, 2016
• Disappearing Angrily: Adolescent Girlhood in “The Girls” and “The Wonder”, Flavorwire, 2016
• “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” and “Bojack Horseman” Explore the Emptiness of Success, Flavorwire, 2016
• Let 2015 Be the Year the Female Fuckup Goes Mainstream, Flavorwire, 2015
• My Journey into the Glittering, Hollow Heart of Taylor Swift Fandom, Flavorwire, 2015
• Magic Mike XXL and the Rise of the Female Gaze, Flavorwire, 2015
• We Should All Be Spinsters: Writers Take On a New Feminine Mystique, Flavorwire, 2014
• Leaving it All Behind: 2014′s Literary Trend Towards Solitude as Feminist Statement, 2014
• 21 Jane Austen Movies and Miniseries, Ranked, Vulture, 2014
• The Foibles of Fandom: “Austenland” and “Among the Janeites”–LA Review of Books, 2013
• “Looking askance at the Goyim,” on Francesca Segal’s The Innocents, Wharton and the Jews – LA Review of Books, 2013.
• Copywriters at the Gates (on Mad Men’s “Jewish season”)–The Jewish Daily Forward, 2012
• Hunger Pangs: Searching for the Perfect YA Heroine, Bitch Magazine, 2011
• Do ‘Dirty Dancing’ and ‘Thelma and Louise’ Still Matter?– WSJ.com: Speakeasy, 2011
• The Bloody, Twisted, Inverted World of Twilight: Violent Vampire Sex, Demon-Babies and Overwhelming Female Desire– Alternet, 2011
• MTV’s ‘16 and Pregnant’ exploits teen moms but addresses abortion with dignity–Washington Post Outlook, 2010
• Howls of Anger, and of Liberation (Film review of “Howl”)–The Nation, 2010
• Set in Westport, a Jewish Retelling of ‘Sense and Sensibility’, —The Jewish Daily Forward, 2010
• The Cape’s Tragic Characters on Cape Cod as setting for novels–The Daily Beast, 2009
• Twilight and New Moon:** Sexual Longing in a World of Abstinence**–Christian Science Monitor, 2009
• Running to Freedom: James McBride–Publishers Weekly, 2008
• The Girl Geek Stands Alone (Girl Geeks in Pop Culture)-–Bitch Magazine, Winter 2007

Humor.

• As a Feminist, I Think Women Should Wear Chastity Belts, The Hairpin, 2017
• It Happened to Me: Sometimes I Hear Maniacal Laughter from the Locked Tower Room (Jane Eyre meets XoJane), Flavorwire 2015
• Camille Paglia Talks About This Crazy Weather We’re Having, Flavorwire, 2015
• The Bridal Instructions of Caroline Bingley, The Toast, 2014
• Lizzy Bennet vs. Lily Bart vs. The Patriarchy. Another venture into Austendom and Whartondom, The Toast, 2014
• Parodies of George Eliot and Henry James at the Hairpin, 2014
• My Late Adolescent Poetry, Translated into Plain English, the Hairpin, 2013
• I Was a Model in a Regency Jane Austen Fashion Show. –The Hairpin, 2012

More about me…

• I’ve been interviewed by Kveller and profiled at The Guardian 
• Every Job I’ve Had: Anti-Sweatshop Agitator, Tutor for the 1%, and More The Billfold, June 2014
• My thoughts on personality tests (and where I fall on some of them) in WIRED.
• I chronicled my pregnancy at Jezebel: here are some pieces about miscarriage, maternity clothes, mommy friends, pregnancy brain, and crazy late pregnancy complications.
• Mourning Anew, A personal essay about loss, Modern Loss, Feb 28, 2014
• List-making with Bridget. A personal essay about Bridget Jones and Me. Vol. 1 Brooklyn, 2013.
• An Elegy for Lou Reed, who taught me to “be”, The Forward, 2013
• “What it’s like living here” from Sarah Seltzer in New York City–A personal essay at Numero Cinq, 2011