"What do you do for a living?"
This common question has become somewhat difficult to answer. My response often depends on who’s asking—or how much time I have.
I’m a reporter and contributing editor for Inside Philanthropy, an online news and analysis outlet for the philanthropy sector. I’m a communications consultant for foundations and nonprofits. I’m an author who has written or co-written numerous nonfiction books. I dabble in fiction and screenplays and occasionally work as a freelance journalist.
I wear many hats as a writer and editor, but more often than not my response is simply that I’m a book editor. This has always been my bread and butter, and it’s the part of my writing life that I most relish and enjoy. I love working with authors and witnessing that aha moment when the true
nature of their book becomes clear. I love guiding them through the frustrations and growing pains that accompany maturation as a writer. I love my front-row seat to the excitement and sense of accomplishment that accompanies publication.
As a book editor, I specialize in developmental editing and book doctoring for both fiction and nonfiction manuscripts, oftentimes collaborating with authors from the earliest draft up until the moment of publication. Across genres, I strongly believe that it’s more important for an editor to uncover an author’s unique voice and talent than to enforce uniform editorial standards. Many clients have shared that as our collaboration progressed, I became more like a teacher than an editor.
You can find my writing in Salon, The Atlantic online, HuffPost, and In These Times, among other outlets. Prior to writing for Inside Philanthropy, I was a contributing writer at Bustle.com and Romper.com, where I covered politics, health, and entertainment. My philanthropy clients have included Foundation for a Just Society, NoVo Foundation, Planned Parenthood International, the United Nations Task Force on Population and Development, and the Harnisch Foundation.
My first screenplay, a short film that I co-wrote with a friend, received multiple industry awards and was the first-place winner in the screenwriting category at the 2015 Los Angeles Movie Awards. In 2025, Dodge County, Incorporated, a book I co-wrote with author Sonja Trom Eayrs, won the Midwest Book Award for nonfiction.
I studied biological anthropology as an undergrad at Northwestern University and later earned an MA in literary journalism at NYU. I live in Chicago with my husband, two kids, and a feisty hamster named Ginger.