A graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, I have written over a dozen books, including novels, story collections, and essay collections, many of which I also designed and typeset. I’ve also written hundreds of articles and essays and designed literary journals and books for small presses.

There’s Nothing Funny About Design: Essay Collection, 2009 (Princeton Architectural Press)(Ellen Lupton interviews me about the book.)(A nice review is here.)

American Home Life: Novel in Stories, 2007 (So New Publishing)(Issuu excerpt)

American Mutt Barks in the Yard, 2005 (Emigre); full text in PDF at Emigre; winner of the Winterhouse Award for Design Writing

Little Book of Love Letters, Volumes 1-3 (Emigre); wrote the text for three type specimens for Emigre

We Were Ugly So We Made Beautiful Things, 2003 (Word Riot Press); story collection with an introduction by Steve Almond and cover art and interior illustrations by Eduardo Recife

Legal Visionaries, 2013, and Unbound, 2009 (Lumen Legal, now Lexitas) (With David Galbenski’s guidance, I wrote, designed, and typeset these two books about the future of legal services. I also interviewed about forty people in the industry.)

Humans Make Robot Movies to Feel Better About Being Human in a Robot World, 2011 (I made this book for a senior seminar I taught at Winthrop. I guided students in selecting their themes, creating their lettering, making their illustrations, and designing and publishing their books.)

Love Me Alone: Stories, 2011 (I selected my stories and Emigre love letters in a sort of “best of” collection.)

I designed the cover and typeset the 2010 New Jersey anthology What’s Your Exit?

I edited, designed, and published the anthology of writing during the Bush years entitled What Happened to Us These Last Couple Years? (2008)(Goodreads).

Twisted Fun: Stories, 2006 (Word Riot Press)

Johnny Red: A Novel, 2005 (Word Riot Press)

Terminally Curious: Stories, 2005 (So New Media)

The Dead Bug Funeral Kit, 2003 (a kit with poems for eulogizing your dead bug)

The Human Case: 29 Stories, 2002

The Leap & Other Mistakes: 35 Stories, 2000

Here’s a link to a few of my books at Alibris.

Here’s a link to some previews of my books and design work for Opium Magazine at Issuu.

I have worked as a freelance journalist for over twenty years and published articles, features, cover stories, profiles, interviews, and essays in periodicals such as Details, American Bar Association Journal, New York Times, Men’s Journal, Men’s Fitness, Mademoiselle, Detroit Free Press, Detroit Monthly, American Prospect, Playboy, Metro Times, Massage Magazine, Coffee Journal, and many others.

My design writing has appeared in ID Magazine, Print (1, 2, 3), Emigre (issues 68, 69, and 70), AIGA, Eye Magazine, Looking Closer 5, Design Disasters, Designing Magazines, Design Observer (“Is There Bauhaus in IKEA?”), and many others. I also wrote entries on Simplicissimus-B040, Lucky Strike-G007, and McDonald’s-I013 for The Phaidon Archive of Graphic Design (2012).

I reviewed children’s books for the New York Times (1, 2, 3) and was even a judge.

For Eye Magazine, I reviewed books by Chip Kidd, Edward Tufte, and Kenya Hara. I also wrote this.

For AIGA, I wrote many pieces over the years about design and design culture. The following pieces are not included in the Nothing Funny collection: “Motor Home, Know Thyself,” “Crosshair in the Crosshair,” “Paper, Paper, Skin, and Body,” “Speak, Designers,” “The Mind Moves the World,” “Generation Squeezed,” “21 Writing Prompts for Design Students,” “An Interview with Paul Ford,” and “An Open Letter to Design Writers.” The following pieces are included, in edited forms, in There’s Nothing Funny About Design: “Man and WIHF,” “Here Comes the Rooster,” “Desire’s Design,” “Red and Yellow Kills a Fellow,” and “Explanation: Crutch or Catalyst?”

I was the graphic designer for the literary magazine Opium Magazine. See issues 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Some previews of the magazines are here.