grew up in Compton, California, and earned

         a bachelor’s degree in magazine journalism from the University of South Carolina. After a few years of teaching and coaching, I landed a job with the NAACP magazine, The Crisis, for which I covered a series of congressional hearings on police brutality. Then came stints at The Village Voice and Omni before I was hired as assistant managing editor of a start-up magazine for African Americans, Emerge. There, I reorganized the editorial department, improving efficiency. Next, I worked as an editor at Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly, then helped  launch a magazine about Brooklyn called Brooklyn Bridge. Start-ups are often chaotic, and Brooklyn Bridge was no exception, but I managed a (mostly) graceful exit to the New York Daily News and, later, the Sporting News, which Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen hoped to turn into a content provider for his latest dream: digeo, a precursor to the smartphone. He was a little too far ahead of his time, however, and I decamped to Boston magazine, where I edited a variety of meaty stories, including a profile of an Iraq War veteran for which the novelist Andre Dubus III won a feature-writing award from the City and Regional Magazine Association.

     Currently, I edit books; copyedit three architecture magazines, including Dwell; and work for a couple of divisions at AARP. I also do illustrations for publications such as New Jersey Monthly.

     I live in New Orleans, Louisiana.