About

I’m a writer.

I’m currently working a book about singing for Algonquin Press. It’s tentatively titled, The Sopranos: Facing the Music at Middle Age, or How Singing in the Choir Saved my Soul. The book is going to braid together four strands: the music itself, my 27 years + experience of singing in a choir, the stories I’m uncovering from the Grace Church archives, and current research in the science of singing. My mind is still reeling about something I found out at the recent World Science Festival.

My most recent book is: Unbelievable: Investigations into Ghosts, Poltergeists, Telepathy, and Other Unseen Phenomena from the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory (Ecco, 2009).  The book before that was The Restless Sleep:  Inside New York City’s Cold Case Squad, (Viking.)

I am also a very occasional contributor (once in a blue moon) to the NPR show, All Things Considered, and I run an online service called Echo.

If it’s not obvious already you will soon see I am way too attached to my cats Buddy (the gray one) and Finney (the black one), aka Satan’s Fur Puppets.

I call them that because they love to kill cute little mice while allowing these horrible flying cockroach things that occasionally show up to live.  I could go on. If by any chance this isn’t enough about me there’s a longer bio on my web page.