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BioI write about feminism, intersectionality, female friendship, motherhood, matrescence, gender, race, and culture in TV, film, and literature; I'm especially interested in the contemporary feminist first-person essay, the female gaze in image-making, and performances of gender in "prestige" television. I also write and teach on the craft of pitching for writers, how gendered and racinated modes of confidence inform pitching and publishing behaviors, and how emergent writers can build their own paths to publication.

My first book was a young adult novel, SISTER MISCHIEF (Candlewick Press, 2011), which follows an all-girl hip-hop crew in suburban Minnesota; The American Library Association included SM in two annual honor lists, the Amelia Bloomer Project, recognizing excellence in feminist YA literature, and the Rainbow List (Top Ten selection), recognizing excellence in GLBTQ YA. I'm also the author of a collection of poems, BECOME A NAME (Fathom Books, 2016), and with the director Meera Menon, I co-wrote and produced the feature film FARAH GOES BANG, which premiered at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival and won the inaugural Nora Ephron Prize from Tribeca and Vogue. My nonfiction work has appeared in publications including BuzzFeed Reader, ELLE, Los Angeles Review of Books, Catapult, Glamour, InStyle, Publishers Weekly, Longreads, The Cut, Refinery29, New Republic, and the anthology SCRATCH: Writers, Money, and The Art of Making a Living. I'm currently working on a novel that examines the long-term effects of sexual violence on relationships between women, a short memoir, and a collection of poems. My craft book on pitching and publishing, PITCH CRAFT: The Writer's Guide to Getting Agented, Published, and Paid, was published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House, in fall 2025.

At Stanford, I serve as a Lecturer in the English department and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program, and as the Associate Director for Student Programs for the Public Humanities Initiative. With Adrian Daub, I also co-host the Clayman Institute for Gender Research's podcast The Feminist Present.