Selected Essays and Reviews

“‘Without the Muffle:’ Byron, Boxing, and Authentic Life” (from Chapter One of my book-in-progress A Thing of Beauty: Reading the Romantics in a World on Fire. Luther College Agora, Fall 2023.

“‘Alone With The Work:’ A Conversation With Amy Weldon” by Christian Smith, Ruminate Magazine Online (July 29, 2021).

Review of Stillicide by Cynan Jones, Orion (March 2021; online.)

Elizabeth Spencer’s Spacious Escapes.” On the writer who taught me that, in her words, “there’s a second country for everybody, one way or another.” Journal of the Short Story in English 72 (Spring 2019): 251-264. (Published in October 2020.)

Review of Dictionary of the Undoing by John Freeman, Orion 39.2 (Summer 2020).

Review of The Yellow House by Sarah Broom, Orion 38:4 (Winter 2019): 83-84.

Review of The Seabird’s Cry by Adam Nicolson. Orion 37.4 (Winter 2018): 75-76.

Review of Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist by Paul Kingsnorth. Orion 37.2 (Summer 2018.)

Gaze Upon This World.” On my late father, medicine, and learning to see. Orion 37.1 (Spring 2018.)

Sweet Home.” On Lynyrd Skynyrd, Harriet Jacobs, and the Auburn Rural Studio. About Place: “Political Landscapes,” 2017. Nominated for “Best of the Net” 2018.

Keats-Shelley House: Rome, Italy.” Students and I seek due scapoli inglesi. The Common Online, 2017.

A Miniature Handbook for New Woman Activists.” On figuring it out and doing the work. In Fracture: Essays, Poems, and Stories on Fracking in America, ed. Taylor Brorby and Stefanie Brook Trout. Iowa City: Ice Cube Press, 2016.

Mockingbirds, Watchmen, and Novelists: on Harper Lee and Novel-Writing.” Is Go Set a Watchman really a novel? Luther College’s “Ideas and Creations” blog, 2015.

The Spinning Self: Pottery and the Rest of My Life.” On trying something new. Bloom, 2014.

Joan Chase: Our Childhood Edens and Lost Orchards of Memory.” On the book you have to write. The Millions, 2014.

The Weird Sisters.” On Flannery O’Connor, Shirley Jackson, and Patricia Highsmith. Los Angeles Review of Books Print Journal, 2014.

Belle Dame Sans Merci: On Angela Carter.” Damn, she’s good. Los Angeles Review of Books, 2013.

Traveling to Mary.” On Mary Wollstonecraft, London, and women of valor. In The Best Travel Writing, Vol 9, ed. Tim Cahill. San Francisco: Solas Press, 2012.

‘The Common Gifts of Heaven’: Animals and Moral Education in Anna Letitia Barbauld’s ‘The Mouse’s Petition’ and ‘The Caterpillar.’” In which grad-student me discovers that scholarship is fun. Cardiff Corvey: Reading the Romantic Text 8 (June 2002). Online. Internet. 26 paragraphs. Journal title changed in 2005 to Romantic Textualities: Literature and Print Culture 1780-1840.