I was born in Los Angeles and raised by New Yorkers. For more than a decade, I lived in San Francisco, where I attended the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley and began my career as a freelance magazine writer.
My directorial debut is Challenger: The Final Flight, a four-part documentary about the space shuttle that I produced with Bad Robot for Netflix. Called "insightful, deeply moving" by the Chicago Sun-Times and "powerful, comprehensive and revealing" by The Hollywood Reporter, our series was nominated for two News & Documentary Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Historical Documentary, and won the Realscreen Award for Best Science & Technology Program.
Since 2012, I’ve written & produced several feature documentaries and docuseries including Legacy: The True Story of the LA Lakers, a ten-part documentary that won the Sports Emmy for Outstanding Documentary Series. My third collaboration with director Antoine Fuqua, the series also received Critics Choice Award and PGA Award nominations. In 2019, I wrote What's My Name: Muhammad Ali, a two-part series for HBO directed by Antoine Fuqua and executive produced by LeBron James and Maverick Carter. Called "a stirring work of nonfiction assembly” by Variety and a "must-see television event" by the Chicago Sun-Times, the film won a Sports Emmy for Outstanding Long Sports Documentary.
My other writing/producing credits include: The Day Sports Stood Still, an Emmy-nominated HBO Sports documentary about pro athletes and social justice activism during the 2020 pandemic; Inside Bill's Brain: Decoding Bill Gates, a three-part series for Netflix directed by Academy Award-winner Davis Guggenheim; and All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records, a feature documentary directed by Colin Hanks that was called "disarmingly intimate" by Newsweek.
In 2022, I released my first podcast. Wild Things: Siegfried & Roy is an eight-part Apple TV+ Original which I wrote, executive produced, and narrated. Called “solid gold entertainment start to finish" by The Guardian, the audio documentary about the world's most successful and controversial magicians was named Adweek's Pop Culture Podcast of the Year.
Since 2007, my writing has appeared in various print publications including Wired, Esquire, Men's Health, New York Times, Popular Science, Maxim, and Playboy. Among other subjects, I've written investigative features about biotech and body hackers, performed as a pro mascot, profiled a 1980's wrestler named the Iron Sheik, experimented with online dating, and explored non-pharmaceutical treatments for military veterans with PTSD.
In 2011, I was a finalist for the National Magazine Award for Personal Service. In 2012, I popularized the term "oversharenting" in an essay for the Wall Street Journal called "The Facebook-Free Baby." Shoutout to my wife for creating the portmanteau, which characterizes parents who overshare on social media.
In 2019, I published a 10,000-word narrative about an Olympic hopeful cyclist who became one of the most prodigious bank robbers in American history. Co-published by Epic Magazine x Chicago Magazine, The Bicycle Thief was selected for the 2020 edition of Best American Sports Writing. The story follows Tom Justice, who spent four years robbing 26 banks in 13 cities across four U.S. states. For every robbery, he always used the same getaway vehicle: his bicycle.
I'm also the writer and managing editor of a book based on the website Cabin Porn. Published by Little, Brown and Company, Cabin Porn debuted on the New York Times bestseller list in 2015 and has since been translated into several languages, including French, Japanese, Polish, German, Korean, and Chinese. According to Powell's Books, "It’s sweet to look at beautiful photos of woodsy cabins... But the stories about the work behind the cabins — that’s the magic."
photo by Noah Kalina