Writing about belief, power, and the ethical tensions shaping modern life.

I’m drawn to moments of rupture that cross invisible thresholds of belief, identity, or power.
My sources of inspiration are history, myth, and a fascination with the unseen forces that shape us.

About

Recent Essays

Essays

The Banishment Playbook: From Anne Hutchinson to Harvard

The Banishment Playbook draws a sharp line from Anne Hutchinson’s exile in 1637 to the Trump administration’s 2025 attack on Harvard. This essay explores how institutions wield power to silence dissent and why that pattern still shapes our democracy today.

COVID-19 is devastating local news. Here's how advertisers can help to save it.

When COVID-19 struck, our fragmented, overstimulated media environment was ill-equipped to meet the urgent need for reliable, local information. This essay explores how the pandemic exposed the critical role and fragility of local journalism, and what its decline means for civic trust and democratic resilience.

Hate Speech Heats Up on Local Radio in Kenya

In Kenya’s western region, local radio stations have become flashpoints for ethnic division, spreading coded hate speech that fuels conflict. This report explores how journalists and civil society leaders are working to defuse tension and rebuild trust, one broadcast at a time.

From the Archives

Between 2010 and 2012, I wrote a series of essays on the emerging contours of digital life, from privacy and influence to big data and meritocracy. Over a decade later, the concerns in these pieces remain salient. These are not time capsules but signposts from the days of a still-unfolding digital story.

Essays

Online Censorship: Controlled by the Fuzzy Line

In a digital world, who decides what we can see and what gets erased? This essay interrogates censorship, platforms, and the future of speech.

#OWS and the Paradox of Empowered Networks

Why did the most networked protest in history struggle to create change? A deep dive into Occupy Wall Street and the paradox of horizontal power.

Social Media and the Poverty of Ideas: New Forms for New Ideas

A reflection on the erosion of intellectual discourse in the age of social media. Are big ideas still possible in an information ecosystem ruled by speed, slogans, and profit?

Social Media and Meritocracy: The Myth Reborn

Meritocracy was once a satirical warning. But in today’s digital world, its myth thrives — boosted by social platforms that confuse popularity with value. This essay interrogates the troubling rise of digital “scores” and the old hierarchies they reinforce.

What Was Ephemeral is Now Permanent: Our Lives in Digital

Our digital footprints feel fleeting but they’re not. This essay traces the shift from ephemeral behavior to permanent surveillance in our online lives.

Explore the Archive

Books

Cybergrace: The Search for God in the Digital World

Cybergrace explores how digital technology reshapes our spiritual imagination. Written at the dawn of the internet age, it traces the parallels between religious yearning and technological ambition and calls for a more embodied, ethical vision of human connection in a wired world.

Castaway

Castaway. Diana Sommers has spent her life helping others heal. Her daughter Phoebe has built an AI that promises to do the same, at scale. When Diana enters Phoebe's immersive world, she discovers a system turning its own beauty against the women inside it. Now, mother and daughter are on opposite sides of an impossible question: how much harm is transformation worth?

Unbidden Light

Unbidden Light reimagines the life of Anne Hutchinson, the spiritual dissenter who upended Puritan New England in the 1630s. As exile strips away her identity and reshapes her faith, Anne is drawn toward a deeper, stranger truth that puts her beyond the reach of church or state. A novel of faith, resistance, and transformation.

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