Selected Works

Features

The Paris Review, When Frank Lloyd Wright Designed a Bookstore

Esquire, To Hell and Back: Inside the Tumultuous Making of Diablo IV

Esquire, The Dark Truth Behind the Best Year in Video Game History

Inverse, The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of the Oldest Independent Game Studio in America

Game Informer, Remaking a Masterpiece

World Literature Today, Criticism Is Literature. Why Is It Vanishing?

Interviews & Profiles

WIRED, In Alien: Earth, the Future Is a Corporate Hellscape

Esquire, Jeff VanderMeer’s Nightmare Fuel

Esquire, Welcome to Brandon Sanderson’s Fantasy Empire

Esquire, Sir Patrick Stewart: What I’ve Learned

Criticism

Esquire, Bethesda’s ‘Starfield’

Los Angeles Times, David Joy’s ‘The Line That Held Us’

Chicago Tribune, Catherine Lacey’s ‘Certain American States’

The A.V. Club, Ted Chiang’s ‘Exhalation’

Inverse, Cyan’s ‘Firmament’

Latest

• Publishers Weekly, Adam Morgan on 6 Suppressed Classics by Modernist-Era Women Writers (December 2025)
• Esquire, Sabrina Impacciatore Looks for Magic (September 2025)
• World Literature Today, Criticism Is Literature. Why Is It Vanishing? (September 2025)
• WIRED, In Alien: Earth, the Future Is a Corporate Hellscape (August 2025)
• Los Angeles Review of Books, We Don’t Have Any Reserves (May 2025)
• Esquire, The Best Books of 2025 So Far (May 2025)
• Esquire, Inside the Improbable Rise of ‘Say Nothing’ (November 2024)
• Esquire, ‘Say Nothing’ Is Excellent, Downright Exhilarating TV (November 2024)
• Esquire, Jeff VanderMeer’s Nightmare Fuel (October 2024)
• WIRED, The Death of ‘Concord’ Offers a Bleak Look at Gaming’s Future (September 2024)
• Esquire, Is Summer Game Fest the Best Thing to Happen to Gaming, Or the Worst? (June 2024)
• Esquire, Why It’s a Vital Time for Short Stories (June 2024)
• Esquire, Kevin Kwan Almost Didn’t Finish This Book (May 2024)
• Literary Hub, ‘The Small Press World Is About to Fall Apart’ (April 2024)
• Esquire, Inside the Censorship Scandal That Rocked Sci-Fi and Fantasy’s Biggest Awards (February 2024)
• Esquire, Starfield Is a Miracle
• Esquire, The Men Can’t Be Saved… Or Can They?
• Chicago Reader, Inside Vivaldi’s All-Female Orchestra
• BOMB magazine, Forces Beyond Our Control
• Polygon, The Science Fiction & Fantasy Books We’re Excited for in 2023
• Literary Hub, The 10 Best Book Reviews of 2022
• Chicago Reader, The 10 Best Chicago Books of 2022
• Esquire, The 50 Best Biographies of All Time
• Esquire, Revisiting All the ‘Game of Thrones’ Books Before ‘House of the Dragon’
• Esquire, The 50 Best Fantasy Books of All Time
• The A.V. Club, The Suspenseful Second Entry in Marlon James’ Dark Star Fantasy Trilogy Outdoes the First
• The A.V. Club, Disaster Strikes in Four New Futuristic Sci-Fi Novels
• The A.V. Club, The Most-Anticipated Books of 2022
• Chicago Reader, The 20 Best Chicago Books of 2021
• Literary Hub, The 10 Best Book Reviews of 2021
• Philadelphia Inquirer, The 7 Best Philadelphia Books of 2021
• Guernica, Ghosts of Rebel Children’s Book Authors: An Interview with Julia Fine
• The A.V. Club, Supernatural Thriller The Perishing is a Love Letter to Los Angeles
• Our State, A Story to Share at Main Street Books
• Literary Hub, The 10 Best Book Reviews of 2020
• Chicago Reader, The 10 Best Chicago Books of 2020
• The A.V. Club, Ken Liu’s The Hidden Girl Reveals One Sci-Fi Puzzle After Another
• Longreads, “We’re All Still Cooking…Still Raw at the Core”: An Interview with Jacqueline Woodson
• Chicago magazine, Having Trouble Sleeping? Try Reading Kevin Huizenga’s Graphic Novel
• Literary Hub, The 10 Best Book Reviews of 2019
• Longreads, Writing To Find Out What You Don’t Know: Mark Haber discusses “Reinhardt’s Garden”
• The A.V. Club, The Lightest Object In The Universe Asks, What If the Apocalypse Were a Good Thing?
• Chicago magazine, How Claire Lombardo Wrote the Midwestern Big Little Lies
• Longreads, Reimagining Harper Lee’s Lost True Crime Novel: An Interview with Casey Cep
• The A.V. Club, The Apocalypse Is Insufferable and Excessive in FKA USA
• Longreads, ‘They Happen To Be Our Neighbors Across the Span of a Century: An Interview with Eve Ewing’
• The A.V. Club, There’s Fun, But Few Big Ideas, in the Popcorn Sci-Fi of City In The Middle Of The Night
• Longreads, ‘I’m Always Writing Against This Idea That Denver’s a White Space’: An Interview with Kali Fajardo-Anstine’
• Literary Hub, The 10 Best Book Reviews of 2018
• Poets & Writers, Chicago: A City Guide
• Chicago magazine, The Next Generation of Chicago Afrofuturism
• Longreads, Putting a New Stone on the Grave: Sjón Brings the Golem to Iceland
• Chicago magazine, How Augustus Rose Was Inspired to Write One of the Year’s Best Chicago Books
• Bookpage, Mermaids and Mistresses: Imogen Hermes Gowar on The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock
• Chicago magazine, Rebecca Makkai Will Change the Way You See Boystown
• Chicago magazine, Meet Chicago’s First National Youth Poet Laureate
• Chicago magazine, One Way to Write a First Novel? Under the Wing of Audrey Niffenegger
• Chicago magazine, Veronica Roth Returns With The Fates Divide
• Chicago magazine, You’ve Never Seen Gwendolyn Brooks Like This Before
• Chicago magazine, Jesse Ball Thinks About Death as Often as Possible
• Bookpage, Exploring the hidden history of Korean immigrants in Japan: Min Jin Lee on Pachinko
• Chicago magazine, Is Chicago the Poetry Capital of America?
• Chicago magazine, In a Year of Dystopian Tales, Ada Palmer Shows What Utopia Might Cost
• Chicago magazine, Chris Ware on Monograph, His Creative Process, and the False Urban-Suburban Dichotomy
• Chicago magazine, The Last Printer on Printers Row
• Chicago magazine, A Conversation with Brilliant Book Designer Isaac Tobin
• Chicago magazine, Nicole Hollander on Her Graphic Memoir About Growing Up in Garfield Park
• Chicago magazine, 10 Times Superheroes Saved Chicago
• Chicago magazine, The Year’s Best Books About Chicago, by Chicagoans
• Literary Hub, Garth Risk Hallberg Came Up With City on Fire in 90 Seconds