I'm the author, co-writer, or ghostwriter of over a dozen books, and I've helped write proposals or served as book doctor for many more. I learned my craft at Harvard College and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. My memoir, Playing Catch with My Mother (Bantam), began as an essay in The New York Times Magazine. My short-form work has appeared — under my name and those of my clients — in publications ranging from The Wall Street Journal to literary magazines to specialty periodicals in my clients' fields. I teach a course in the art of capturing voice on the page, most recently at Columbia University.

Home base is Manhattan. I travel wherever the story needs: around the country and the world, across the political aisle, and into rooms where people may not look or sound much like me. I show up, put people at ease, and make clear that I'm genuinely fascinated to hear their story — the full version, the one that matters.

I've interviewed former business partners who hadn't spoken in years and produced chapters acceptable to both. I've written a book with a man who was unable to meet in person, with a nonagenarian racing to tell his stories before dementia took them, and with a woman documenting her innovative and heroic battle with Stage IV cancer. I've helped Fortune 500 companies and startup unicorns write histories of their origins and articulate their visions for the future. I could tell stories all day about some of my projects. Others I'm legally obliged not to reveal.

Writing is the family business: I'm the grandchild of a radio and TV writer, the child of a book editor and a music critic, the sibling of a poet. My kids sometimes roll their eyes at my curiosity about the people I meet (“Dad talks to everyone…”), but my clients appreciate the same quality, and many become friends.