Books
Criminals: My Family's Life on Both Sides of the Law
Anthologies
“Thirteen Ways of Listening to the Rain,” in The Best American Essays 2023, Vivian Gornick and Robert Atwan, eds. New York: Mariner Books, 2023.
“Empathy in the Age of Trump: Or, Using Our Weird Cultural Moment to Reassess How Fiction Works,” in American Literature in the Era of Trumpism: Alternative Realities, Dolores Resano, ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022.
“The Right Imaginary Person,” in In the Between: 21st Century Short Stories, Brice Particelli, ed. New York: Persea Books, 2022.
“Teaching Creative Writing in Taiwan: Or, Taking the Worry Out of the Word "Creative," in Teaching Creative Writing in Asia, Darryl Whetter, ed., New York: Routledge, 2021.
"The Right Imaginary Person,” in The O. Henry Prize Anthology 2014, Laura Furman, ed. New York: Anchor Books, 2014.
“Why She Stole It,” in Now Write: Fiction Writing Exercises From Today’s Best Writers and Teachers. Sherry Ellis, ed. New York: Tarcher/ Penguin, 2006.
“Flight,” in Full Frontal Fiction: The Best of Nerve. Jack Murnighan, ed. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2000.
“Ode to My Backyard,” 27 Views of Wilmington: The Port City in Prose and Poetry, Hillsborough, NC: Eno Publishing, 2015.
“Sean,” in Pushcart Prize XXXVI: Best of the Small Presses, Bill Henderson, ed. New York: Pushcart Press, 2012.
“Sean,” in Freud’s Blind Spot: 23 Original Essays on Cherished, Estranged, Lost, Hurtful, Hopeful, Complicated Siblings, Elisa Albert, ed. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010.
“The Sword, the Light and the Nintendo DS,” with Karen E. Bender, in How To Spell Chanukah: 18 Writers on 8 Nights of Light. Emily Franklin, ed. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 2007.
Work On The Web
Essays
“Thirteen Ways of Listening to the Rain,” Vol. 43, No. 1, Spring 2022, The New England Review, (audio recording)
“The Argument Over Empathy,” The Ploughshares Blog, December 11, 2020
“A Writer Between Worlds,” The Ploughshares Blog, July 10, 2020
“The Artist As Writer,” The Ploughshares Blog, June 15, 2020
“The Subtle Interrogation of Power in The Pillow Book,” The Ploughshares Blog, April 10, 2020
“The Tale of Genji, Suspended Between East and West,” The Ploughshares Blog, February 26, 2020
“Writing Instructions for Non-Native Speakers,” The Normal School Online, April 26, 2019
"My Father, the Lawyer for the Hells Angels," Electric Literature, July 19, 2018
"How Someone Else's Writers Block Helped Me Write My Novel," Lithub, July 17, 2018
"Choke," Epiphany, July 12, 2018
"Homesteaders," Ascent, June 29, 2018
"Unreliable Tour Guide," Ploughshares, Winter 2013.
“Kawabata Yasunari: The Breeze in the Ink Painting,” Ploughshares, Fall 2013.
"Three Notes on Jesus' Son," Treehouse, May 2012.
“Haiku for an Ailing Father,” Los Angeles Times Book Review: Off the Shelf, July 2009.
“The Sword, the Light and the Nintendo DS,” with Karen E. Bender, Tablet, December 2007.
Articles, Reviews, Interviews
“The Ethics of Memoir: An Author Interviews His Mother,” The Harvard Review Online, July 12, 2019
“An Interview with Johannes Lichtman,” Scoundrel Time, June 18, 2019
“An Interview with Roxana Robinson,” Scoundrel Time, May 14, 2019
“An Interview with Xu Xi,” Scoundrel Time, April 2, 2019
"Why I Take Fake Pills," Smithsonian Magazine, May 2017 (Also available in audio from Audible…Oh, and click here for my interview on placebo with NPR)
"A God Who Let Us Prove His Existence Would Be An Idol: Archie Rand, 'The 613,' and the Slippery, Vexing, Kafkaesque Problem Of the Jewish Visual Imagination," The Los Angeles Review of Books, September 19, 2016
“Billy Childish: I Just Paint,” The Paris Review Daily, September 14, 2015
"I Think I Would Rather Be a Painter," The Paris Review Daily, August 10, 2015
"Vermeer in Manhattan," The Paris Review Daily, August 3, 2015
"Terayama Shuji's The Crimson Thread of Abandon," Three Percent, May 20, 2015
"Yan Lianke's The Four Books," The Rumpus, April 2015
"Bookforum Talks with Yan Lianke," Bookforum, December 2013
"Bookforum Talks with Karen E. Bender," Bookforum, September 2013
"Bookforum Talks with Peter Trachtenberg," Bookforum, August 2013
“Syllabus: Unfinished Novels,” Bookforum, August 2013
Fiction
“The Silver Door,” The Harvard Review Online, August 31, 2022
Conversations On Writing
“Interviews with Robert Anthony Siegel and Raza Ali Hasan on Setting,“ Muhammad Sheeraz Dasti, Mid-American Review Blog, September 20, 2023
With Muhammad Sheeraz Dasti and Aamer Hussein, “Finding Your Voice as a Writer,” The News on Sunday, Pakistan, May 1, 2022
With Caryn Green, Novel Talk, August 19, 2021
With Sean Murphy, 1455 LitArts, The 14:55 interview, August 21, 2020
With Jeanne McCulloch and Sean Murphy, The 1455 Summer Lit Fest: Family Affairs, August 16, 2019
With Karen E. Bender and Sean Murphy, The 1455 Author Series, February 5, 2019
With Douglas Jackson, Book City Roanoke, November 2, 2018
With Matt Katz, Midday on WNYC, July 19, 2018
With Lily McLemore, Book Page, July 17, 2018
With Mary Louise Kelly, NPR Weekend Edition Saturday, April 22, 2017
At the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, an 11th Hour Talk on Flash Fiction, June 18, 2012