ESSAYS & REPORTAGE
THE LAWMAN AND THE OUTLAW (Dec 2022) Adi Magazine (a contemplation of early U.S. history and creation myths, as well as Kyle Rittenhouse, prototypes, archetypes, self-mythologizing, projection, and snake symbology)
WHAT THE HISTORY OF THE WORD “INSURRECTION” SAYS ABOUT JAN. 6 (Jan 2022) Time (on the ongoing debate over using the word “insurrection” to describe the events of January 6)
THE USEFULNESS OF ANGER IN JUSTICE WORK (Jan 2022) LitHub (excerpt of INSURRECTION in online literary magazine)
SAME QUESTION, MANY ANSWERS (Dec 2020) The Epiphanic (on two autobiographical novels by Bill Gunn and the question always asked of black artists)
ON METONYMY AND MYTH (Oct 2020) The Epiphanic (on the T-word, my displaced anger, commercial agreements, and the rallies with insights from Roland Barthes)
FORM AND CONTENT (Oct 2020) The Epiphanic (on André Leon Talley’s memoir THE CHIFFON TRENCHES)
FIGHT OR FLIGHT (Jul 2020) The Epiphanic (on conceptual artist and analytical philosopher Adrian Piper’s memoir ESCAPE TO BERLIN)
INSURRECTION IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER (Jun 2020) The Baffler (putting Trump’s threatened invocation of the Insurrection Act into historical context)
LOVE, THE VERB (Apr 2020) The Epiphanic (on the meaning of “love” as a verb, as explored by bell hooks and Erich Fromm)
YOU MAY HAVE THE BODY (Mar 2020) The Epiphanic (on the pandemic, pathogens, parasites, hospitality, hosts, bodies, borders, and biopolitics, with Derrida’s OF HOSPITALITY as a point of departure)
CALL AND RESPONSE (Feb 2020) The Epiphanic (responding to George Packer’s “The Enemies of Writing”)
BECOMING META (Apr 2017) (in DOUBLE BIND: WOMEN ON AMBITION, edited by Robin Romm)
CONFRONTING THE UNREAL, Lit Hub (Jan 2017) (reflecting on the unreality of a Trump presidency)
BY WHAT AUTHORITY? The Baffler (Nov 2016) (contrasting "insurrectionary" challenges to state authority in light of DAPL protests)
PRIOR TO EXPERIENCE, Lapham's Quarterly (Jul 2016) (reflecting on policing in Cleveland and my experiences at the first national conference on the Movement for Black Lives)
FALSE MOVES, Full Stop (Aug 2015) (on Walmart, John Crawford III, Black Friday and so-called race riots)
HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION AT HOME, Los Angeles Review of Books (Jan 2015) (considering U.S. domestic military intervention from Katrina to Ferguson and the paradoxical state of black citizenship)
WHEN TYRA MET NAOMI (in BEST AFRICAN AMERICAN ESSAYS)
SHORT FICTION
EVERYDAY APOTHEOSIS, Vol. 1 Brooklyn (Feb 2017) (short story in online literary magazine)
COME TO JESUS, Queen Mob's Tea House (Oct 2015) (short story in online arts magazine, passes DuVernay & Bechdel tests)
(DIS)RESPECT THE POSITION, Berfrois (May 2015) (short story in literary-intellectual online magazine)
CELEBRITY IN THE VILLAGE, Day One (Dec 2014) (short story in Amazon's Kindle literary journal)
LIFE OF THE MIND, Printers Row Journal (Oct 2014) (short story in the CHICAGO TRIBUNE’s literary supplement)
SELF TALK, Los Angeles Review of Books Magazine, Winter Edition (Dec 2013) (short story in special fiction issue)
A REAL EDUCATION, Transition (Feb 2012) (short story in journal housed at Harvard University's Hutchins Center)
POETRY
TEN FOUND POEMS, Berfrois the Book (Mar 2019)
BE THE CRY, Josephine Quarterly (Apr 2018)
WHAT IS LOVE, Memoir Mixtapes (Jan 2018)
SOUNDS LIKE DAWN, Empty Mirror (Nov 2017)
SHAPE OF ME PT. 1, Empty Mirror (Nov 2017)
SHAPE OF ME PT. 2, Empty Mirror (Nov 2017)
A SINGLE STEP, Truthdig (Oct 2017)
GRENFELL, Queen Mob's Tea House (Aug 2017)
GENTRIFICATION, Queen Mob's Tea House (Aug 2017)
DIAMOND INSIDE, Queen Mob's Tea House (Aug 2016)
HOW TO FALL OUT OF LOVE, Queen Mob's Tea House (Aug 2016)
DIE, EVENTUALLY, Queen Mob's Tea House (Sept 2015)
INTERVIEWS
Nate Wessler, Staff Attorney with the ACLU's Speech, Privacy & Technology Project, Longreads (Sept 2017)
Carl Lipscombe, Deputy Director of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, Longreads (Jul 2017)
REVIEWS
METHOD WRITING, Boston Globe (Mar 2024) (GREAT EXPECTATIONS, by Vinson Cunningham)
THE TREACHERY OF IMAGES, Boston Globe (Feb 2024) (GHOSTS OF SEGREGATION, by Rich Frishman & B. Brian Foster)
THE HORROR, Boston Globe (Oct 2023) (THE CHANGELING, Apple TV+ Series)
WHO SHOT JOHN, Boston Globe (Aug 2023) (THE HEAVEN & EARTH GROCERY STORE, by James McBride)
A TALL ORDER, Tricycle Magazine (May 2022) (EIGHTFOLD PATH, by Steven Barnes and Dr. Charles Johnson)
PAST PRESENT, Tricycle Magazine (Summer 2020) (WATCHMEN, HBO Series)
FORGIVING GRACE, Tricycle Magazine (Winter 2019) (GRACE WILL LEAD US HOME, by Jennifer Berry Hawes)
OF MANY MINDS, The Baffler (Jul 2018) (MISTAKEN IDENTITY, by Asad Haider)
MASTER OF NONE, Review 31 (Jul 2017) (WHY THE DALAI LAMA IS A SOCIALIST, by Terry Gibbs)
SPINOZA AND THE ALL-AMERICAN NOVEL, Los Angeles Review of Books (Jan 2017) (DEEP SINGH BLUE, by Ranbir Singh Sidhu)
BLACKASS, The Barnes & Noble Review (Apr 2016) (BLACKASS, by A. Igoni Barrett)
LOST IN MEMORY, Tricycle Magazine (Winter 2014) (AMERICAN CANYON, by Amarnath Ravva)
ONLY FICTION, Tricycle Magazine (Summer 2014) (IN PARADISE, by Peter Matthiessen)
MIND MATTERS, Tricycle Magazine (Spring 2014) (ONE SIMPLE IDEA, by Mitch Horowitz)
VACARE OPRAH, Los Angeles Review of Books (Nov 2012) (on OPRAH: THE GOSPEL OF AN ICON, by Kathryn Lofton, discussing how Oprah occupies the intersection of religion, capitalism and pop culture)
COMING OF AGE IN CHILD SOLDIER LITERATURE, Brooklyn Rail (Jul/Aug 2011) (on six works of non-fiction and fiction written by and about child soldiers on the African continent)
SCHOLARLY
PARADOXES OF SOVEREIGNTY AND CITIZENSHIP 20 CUNY L. Rev. 389 (2017) (critical race history of federal domestic military intervention in the United States)
African Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 6, Issue 2-3, pgs. 375-393 (2014) (book review essay considering THEY FIGHT LIKE SOLDIERS, THEY DIE LIKE CHILDREN, by Romeo Dallaire, and REIMAGINING CHILD SOLDIERS IN INTERNATIONAL LAW AND POLICY, by Mark Drumbl)