about

I’m a freelance journalist and the author of a memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment, and a short story collection, You’re a Bad Man, Aren’t You? My work has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, Harper’s Bazaar, Slate, and The Daily Beast, among many other outlets. As a commentator and pundit, I’ve appeared on CNN, ABC, and National Public Radio. In 2002, I launched one of the Internet’s first sex blogs: The Reverse Cowgirl. In the media, I’ve been described as a “rare commodity online” and a “modern-age Studs Terkel.” My email is here. My blog is here. My newsletter, The Reverse Cowgirl, is here. I’m on X, Instagram, Threads, Facebook, and LinkedIn. I’m represented by CAA.

My reporting, essays, and commentaries have been published in over 100 print and digital publications, including The Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, Harper's Bazaar, Salon, Slate, The Daily Beast, Newsweek, Forbes.com, Marie Claire, Esquire, The LA Weekly, Variety, The San Francisco Chronicle, Details, Topic, Gay Magazine, Esquire, The Guardian, FourTwoNine, Men's Health, Glamour UK, The Billfold, Women's Health, The A.V. Club, Inc., The Telegraph, BlackBook, Movieline, The Vancouver Sun, Radar, The Virginian-Pilot, Wired, The New York Post, Detour, The San Francisco Examiner, Arena, The San Francisco Bay Guardian, The East Bay Express, HILOBROW, The Good Men Project, and in the anthologies Lost Objects: 50 Stories About the Things We Miss and Why They Matter, edited by Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker and published by Hat & Beard Press, and Hurricane Katrina: Perspective on Modern World History, edited by Ebonie Ledbetter and published by Greenhaven Press.

My pioneering longform investigation of the devastating impact of the Great Recession on the pornographic film business, “They Shoot Porn Stars, Don’t They?”, was featured by Slate in "Seven Great Stories About Paying for Sex and Being Paid to Have It” and praised by Longform as “unflinching and devastating.” An essay I wrote about it, "The Numbers On Self-Publishing Long-Form Journalism," has been taught in Media, Politics & Power in the Digital Age at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and Studio 20 at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University. In “Extreme Porn Crackdown,” I chronicled the Los Angeles Police Department’s attempts to prosecute pornographers. For five years, I ran The Letters Project, a controversial social experiment in which strangers confessed their secret sex lives — from prostitution to strip clubs to porn addiction — in anonymous letters. It was featured on Salon, Newsweek, and CBC Radio.

I’ve appeared on television, radio, and podcasts over 100 times, including CNN, Politically Incorrect on ABC (six times), FX, the UK’s Channel 4, CBC Radio, and NPR. For five years, I was an on-camera reporter for Playboy TV’s Sexcetera, traveling around the world to cover sex-related stories. My work and I have been covered by The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The New York Post, NPR, The Washington Post, BuzzFeed, The New York Times, Wired, Salon, The Atlantic, MSNBC, The New Yorker, Slate, TIME, Family Secrets, BBC Radio, The Globe and Mail, CNN, Bustle, The Village Voice, Alta Journal, The Los Angeles Times, CBC Radio, The Daily Beast, Playboy, The San Francisco Chronicle, Glamour, The Telegraph, High Times, Five Books, The Chicago Tribune, Lifehacker, The Huffington Post, Southern Living, The Mercury News, Daily Blast Live, The Kansas City Star, Shondaland, Next Big Idea Club, Maclean’s, Eater, KATU, Book Riot, Air/Light, Cybernews, Publishers Weekly, The Sun, PRINT, ABC Radio National (Australia), Library Journal, Gambit, Channel 4 (UK), Zibby Magazine, Kirkus Reviews, and Naked Capitalism.

My acclaimed memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment, recounts my 30-year tenure as a research subject in an unprecedented University of California, Berkeley longitudinal study of personality development that sought to predict who over 100 Berkeley kids, including me, would grow up to be. Emma Roberts’ Belletrist book club selected Data Baby as its December 2023 pick. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly called my memoir “a fascinating debut memoir” and “gripping stuff.” Kirkus Reviews deemed it “An intelligently provocative memoir and investigation.” The Globe and Mail praised it as “a thought-provoking, ridiculously propulsive book.” More about Data Baby is here.

My short story collection, You’re a Bad Man, Aren’t You?, was published in 2003. My fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies: Significant Objects: 100 Extraordinary Stories About Ordinary Things, edited by Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn and published by Fantagraphics; Best Sex Writing: 2009, edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel and published by Cleis Press; Smut: Volume 1, edited by the Editors of Nerve.com and published by Chronicle Books; Homewrecker: An Adultery Reader, edited by Daphne Gottlieb and published by Soft Skull Press; Sudden Stories: The Mammoth Book of Miniscule Fiction, edited by Dinty W. Moore and published by Mammoth Books; and Chick-Lit 2: No Chick Vics, edited by Cris Mazza and published by Fiction Collective 2. My short stories have been published in Bending Genres, HILOBROW, Ghost Town, Construction, PANK Magazine, Clackamas Literary Review, Contrary Magazine, Sycamore Review, Nerve, Identity Theory, 3:AM Magazine, Born Magazine, Hobart, Monkeybicycle, Opium, A Shaded View on Fashion Fiction, Word Riot, Elimae, and 2 Gyrlz Quarterly.

My erotic art comics have been featured in Best Erotic Comics: 2008, edited by Greta Christina and published by Last Gasp; Dirty Stories: Volume 3, edited by Eric Randolph and published by Eros Comix/Fantagraphics; Headpress 23: Funhouse, edited by David Kerekes and published by Headpress Press; and on Artbomb. My photographs have appeared in Known Unknowns by Charles Saatchi, Men's Health, Forbes.com, mashKULTURE, Le Journale de la Photographie, Thought Catalog, Nerve, Cloud King, and Arthur, among other publications.

I’ve spoken at The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, CA; the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley in Berkeley, CA; the Crossroads Writers Conference in Macon, GA; Techweek Chicago at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago, IL; and Electronic Orphanage in Los Angeles, CA. I’ve read my work at the Berkeley Public Library - North Branch in Berkeley, CA; Book Soup in Los Angeles, CA; Writers with Drinks at the Make-Out Room in San Francisco, CA; Roar Shack at 826LA in Los Angeles, CA; Vermin on the Mount at Book Show in Los Angeles, CA; The Encyclopedia Show at the Vittum Theater in Chicago, IL; The North Door in Austin, TX; the 215 Festival at Tritone in Philadelphia, PA; the New Orleans Book Fair at the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans, LA; Spoken Interludes at Le Colonial in Los Angeles, CA; Sit 'n' Spin, produced by Joey Soloway, at the Comedy Central Stage in Los Angeles, CA; The F-Word Project at the San Francisco Art Institute in San Francisco, CA; and Fake Fiction at The Fake Gallery in Los Angeles, CA.

In 2020, I was a Grantee of the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Howard G. Buffett Fund for Women Journalists. In 2019, I was a Participant at the Social Science Summer Institute for Journalists at the Russell Sage Foundation. From 2018 to 2019, I was the Lawrence Grauman Jr. Post-graduate Fellow at the Investigative Reporting Program at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2016, I was a Resident at the Noepe Center for Literary Arts on Martha’s Vineyard. In 2015, I was a Fellow at the Logan Nonfiction Program at the Carey Institute for Global Good and a Storyteller at Thread at Yale at Yale University.

As The Fixer, I’m a strategic communications consultant. I advise venture capitalists, CEOs, and founders on strategic and crisis communications, ghostwrite books and speeches, and help senior executives shape their stories and personal brands through publicity and media relations. To get started working together, buy a ticket for a one-hour introductory consultation and then email me to schedule your first session here. From 2018 to 2019, I was the founding editor of Forbes Vices. I helped build out a new digital vertical and managed a team of global contributors covering the vice beat, including gambling, cannabis, sex, drugs, guns, and alcohol. As a television producer, I’ve developed scripted and unscripted series, including true crime, outdoor adventure, and limited series. I’ve produced field segments for and appeared as on-camera talent on FX and Playboy TV. I was a consultant on Steven Soderbergh's 2009 film, The Girlfriend Experience.

As a copywriter, I’ve worked with Publicis Groupe's MSLGROUP and Weber Shandwick, increasing digital engagement and writing television commercial scripts for some of the world's biggest brands. I’ve ghost-tweeted for celebrities, and I’ve voiced Pepto-Bismol on Facebook, growing social engagement by 500% as market share grew 11%. I’ve created social content for Scope, Oscar Mayer, Crest, Metamucil, and Swiffer. From 2011 to 2012, I was the Digital Outreach Manager for Conan O'Brien's Conan on TBS and Emmy-winning Team Coco, disseminating viral video content. From 2008 to 2011, I was a senior editor at WarnerMedia, where I edited The Frisky, a popular digital vertical for 18-to-34-year-old women. I wrote nearly 1,400 posts, managed a team of freelance contributors, and directed the digital outreach program, growing the site’s audience from startup to over 4M unique visitors and 22M page views a month.

I hold a B.A. in English from the University of California, Berkeley and an M.A. in English from the Program for Writers at the University of Illinois Chicago. My personal interests include Pilates, yoga, and riding horses. I was born in Oakland, grew up in Berkeley, and live in Los Angeles.

(Photo credit: Clayton Cubitt)