I figured: a heart-attack while laughing uncontrollably at a camp fire, surrounded by friends and family and the cat.
The second part is trickier. For those that came to this site wanting to know more about me, here's the summary:
I was born in Princeton New Jersey, beaten into the world by seven minutes by my twin brother Colin. We lived in rural New Jersey, which no one thinks exists but it does. When I was 4, my parents seperated, then divorced, then Mom moved into Princeton with all of us, my brother and sister and me. I had a rock collection. I ignored the rock collection. I used to fall asleep listening to a record "Sounds of Terror" given to me by my mother. I wanted Dracula to be my father or best friend. From Fangoria Magazine, I bought a tiny glass coffin of dirt from "Transylvania" to be worn as a necklace. I believed it would turn me into a heroic bat. It did, sometimes.
My twin brother is a musician and graphic designer.
So not true!
I look more like this now:
Shirt from Kohl's.
I have a rockin' older sister who has been the inspiration for this and this.
I have worked as a writing teacher, boat carpenter, game designer for reality television, columnist, book ghostwriter, journalist, and nearly always as a volunteer at something. I graduated from Yale and The Iowa Writers' Workshop (I'm even on the homepage). This fall, I'll start work as assistant professor of writing at Grand Valley State University in Michigan.
I write fiction, essays, plays, and books. I wrote this book about independent filmmaking with the "godmother of indie film", producer Christine Vachon. My writing has been anthologized in The Best American Science and Nature Writing, Best American Fantasy, and From Boys to Men: Gay Men Write About Growing Up. I was the Axton Fellow in Fiction writing at the University of Louisville, and I've won fellowships and prizes from the the Michener-Copernicus Society, and the National Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association, the NYC Lesbian and Gay Center. My fiction has appeared in One Story, American Short Fiction, The Sun, and West Branch and hopefully some more places soon. My plays have been developed at The New Harmony Project, The Playwrights' Center, The Playwright's Theatre of New Jersey, The Lark, and The Orchard Project. I've performed monologues and essay theatre at The Moth and The Riverside Theatre (IA), and I hope to do that more. My friends and playwrights Sean Lewis and Jennifer Fawcett know more about it than I do.
The PVP anthology You are entering your life.
I've included a sampling of my fiction, plays, and non-fiction in the side margins and here below, from The New York Times Magazine, New York Magazine, The Advocate, Salon.com, The Village Voice (as a columnist), Brill's Content, among others.
Unfortunately, much fiction is not
available online. Because books need to survive! Open Book
FICTION
"The
Ledge"
A 15th century, sea-faring, queer, ghost story. The link
includes an interview and excerpt.
from One Story
"Everything, All At Once"
Vaginal lichen and beyond!
from The Sun
DRAMATIC WRITING
Versus PDF Excerpt
A group of women take a class in football. How far are you willing to go to be the person someone else wants you to be?
Full-length play (4W, 4M)
Developed at The Lark.
Timberland PDF excerpt
On the year anniversary of a tree-sit, two-hundred feet in the air, a suspicious accident summons a outsider who will change everything.
Full-length play (5M, 3W)
Developed at Playwrights' Center and The New Harmony Project. Produced at the Iowa New Play Festival.
Curious Father PDF Excerpt
When a several middle-aged men gather in an upstate retreat to come out of the closet, strange acts of violence begin terrorizing their weekend of transformation.
Full-length play (7M, 1W)
Developed at The New Jersey Playwrights' Theatre.
Denali PDF Excerpt
Two friends who have lived through the unthinkable confront the question: who owns the story of survival?
Full-length (2M, 1W)
Developed at The Orchard Project.
Night of the
Cure
AIDS is over. Where's the party?
10-minute play (3M)
What Gets Saved
When water is high and the world is ending, what do you take with you?
10-minute play (2M, 1W)
NON-FICTION
A profile of author Chuck Palahniuk. The most fun I've had with a subject -- until he pulled out of the piece.
The Advocate
May 20th, 2008
Lost in
Paradise
Thailand was an HIV prevention miracle. What happened?
One of the more difficult, fascinating assignments I've ever had.
Third Place, National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association 2005
Excellence in HIV/AIDS Coverage.
POZ
7.04
Dispatch:
Thailand
Scuba-diving with a head-cold: Thailand a year before
the tsunami. For the magazine of the "Platinum" Amex Card holder. You
are probably not one. I'm not.
Departures
7.04
Melancholy
Baby
Zach Braff, fellow Garden Stater, shares sushi at the
Mercer.
New York Magazine
6.04
Downhill from Here
Teenage
Olympic hopefuls, living in a former ski-lodge in backwoods
Maine.
Ski
10.04
Welcome to Planet
Pixar
The culture of the most successful film studio in history.
I wanted to call it "The Story Factory". Nobody else
did.
Wired
6.04
Them Against The World, Part
2
The fences are tall, the cops are waiting. How does the
anti-corporate globalization movement stay relevant?
NY Times
Magazine
11.16.03
Are You There, God?
Watching
the "hit" television show Joan of
Arcadia
Slate.com
10.9.03
Homegrown Homeland
Defense
The people you probably didn't know were protecting our
borders.
NY Times Magazine
6.15.03
A Living Blob
An experiment
in plastic love.
NY Times Magazine
5.28.03
The Bittersweet
Science
A story about the edges of medicine. I cried when I wrote
it. Might have been the Sigor Ros in the background. (Selected for the
Best American Science and Nature Writing 2004)
NY Times
Magazine
3.16.03
Getting Hitched In Buenos
Aires
An interview with the people who made Buenos Aires the
first city in South America to recognize civil unions.
The
Advocate
2.4.2003
Still Dressed to Kill
An
interview with deeply odd Eddie Izzard, dressed in "bloke mode", about
his new stink bomb film you never heard of.
The
Advocate
10.29.2003
Not Fade Away
Where does
fake vintage come from?
NY Times
Magazine
12.10.02
The Double Life of Penelope
Cruz
She really did pick at her salad and drink water. Oh, and
there was no double life.
Elle
August 2002
The Wasteland
The madness
of the television pilot season, told through three first-time
writer/directors -- Rod Lurie, Graham Yost, and Allison Anders.
NY
Times Magazine
6.15.02
Market Forces
What
happens when an Asian/Latino labor group pushes for justice and fair
wages at Koreatown¹s largest grocery?
L.A. Weekly
May 3-9,
2002
Erin Brockovich,
The Brand
Honestly, she was like my sister.
NY Times
Magazine
4.28.02
Terribly Smart
What to
make of rising I.Q. scores and kid genius.
NY Times
Magazine
3.24.02
Our Siblings, Our
Secrets
Sisters and the rehearsal story.
The
Advocate
3.19.02
Old-Fashioned Long
Songs
A book review, about the world before "gay".
The
Advocate
2.5.02
Human Portals
An
excuse for me to write about the comedy of working for Talk and
my love of Survivor.
Brill's Content
May, 2001
The Rise of Teen Gurus
A
sociological study of how technology turns all families into immigrant
families.
Brill's Content Magazine
August, 2000
The War On Stink
What the
war on halitosis looks like.
NY Times
Magazine
10.15.00
Phone School!
Classes
via the telephone.
Brill's Content
April 2000
Rufus on the Couch
How
could I have known I was violating the code of rock
journalism?
Nerve Magazine
August 2001
Prisoner of Love
Why is
Mary Kay Letourneau, the 35 year-old teacher who slept with her 13
year-old student, trying to keep her own book out of American
stores?
Salon.com
2.27.00
Nobrow, No Logo
Two book reviews
Salon.com
2.15.00
Launching Fad
A
meditation on third-gen start-ups. One of my favorites.
Village
Voice
1.20.00
Unarmed and Under Fire
An
oral history of female Vietnam
veterans.
Salon
11.19.99
Marooned!
I try to live
online for a week.
Village Voice
11.98
Chain
Re:Action
Email and a new kind of protest movement.
Village
Voice
10.98
Sweet Machine
My first
published book review, of Mark Doty's
poetry.
Salon.com
5.98