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A Commencement Address for 2020
Good afternoon faculty, family members, and graduates of 2020, Raise your hand if you’ve heard the phrase “uncertain times” used to describe our current moment. These are uncertain and unprecedented times. But…
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The Remembering Pool
On New Year’s Eve 2002, after living and working next to Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan for 16 months, I moved out of my hard-won, one-bedroom apartment in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn and…
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The Homework We All Need To Do
Let’s think about writing for a moment. We think of writing in two ways. First, there is the writing we do everyday. The phrases that we use to love our families, argue…
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Writing is a New Word
As I write in The Interactive Voice, words themselves are thesis statements. The lawyer Raphael Lemkin first developed and coined the term “genocide” in response to the Armenian Massacre at the hands…
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On the Significance of Days
When I was a kid, the calendar divided into average days and holidays. On holidays, there were presents and candy. Then the presents—and the holidays—lost their luster. I still remember the first…
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Twitter Is Dead; Long Live Twitter
Here is an article I don’t need to read again: a professor or teacher polls their classroom, discovers the students don’t use a social media network or a software application anymore, and…
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I Hate the Word “Content”
I’m not fond of “material” either. I use them in conversation and writing, but not often. Both words make me think of polystyrene peanuts. They are metaphors for the worst motivation for…
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Manhattan is an Island
The skyline can make you forget this. When I worked at NYC Media at the turn of the millennium, my office was in the tower of the Municipal Building in Downtown Manhattan.…
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