I write about religion in America. My work appears in The New York Times, the Washington Post, Rolling Stone Magazine, Religion News Service and elsewhere.
The Revealer, in an interview, said: “He has a particular talent for telling stories about complicated people with a kind of lucid nuance.”
My reporting has won the Rockower Award for Excellence in Feature Writing and a Silurians Press Club award. The Society of Features Journalism, in a portfolio award announcement, wrote: “Deeply reported and well-written profiles of fascinating religious figures. As a collection, they reveal as much about American spirituality as the individuals.”
I’ve written about eclectic religious responses to the pandemic, including a profile of Clay Clark, the wheeling-dealing frontman of the ReAwaken America Tour; New Age author Christiane Northrup’s conspiracy makeover; a faith-healing, demon-exorcising TikToker whose fandom grew during lockdown months; and a Pentecostal church that tripled in size after flouting health orders.
For The New York Times, I’ve covered topics like: the media mogul Stephen Strang and his Charisma Media empire; New Age superstar Marianne Williamson and A Course In Miracles; an End Times evangelist who says the Bible foretold Donald Trump; the revival of a forgotten 19th-century scripture called the Oahspe; poet-turned-psychic Jane Roberts’s Seth channeling; the famed New York subway psychic known as Keano; and much more. Find some of that writing here.
I’m also a contributing editor and former staff writer at The Forward. My reporting on Black Hebrew Israelites from this time appears in a collection from Routledge.
And I speak often about my work, in places such as: the American Academy of Religion, the Religion Seminar at Columbia University and the Religion News Association; and on National Public Radio and many podcasts, such as QAnon Anonymous and Conspirituality.