Writer and journalist covering money, culture, and the odd bit of how-to. My book, POE FOR YOUR PROBLEMS, is out now: http://amzn.to/3y7XxYi Signed copies: http://bit.ly/2Xy9p9p
Catherine Baab-Muguira column: Why Poe belongs to Richmond
Four different East Coast cities claim Poe, but he belongs to Richmond. Here's why.
Tradeoff: The True Story of My $624 Mortgage Payment
My older sister leans over, touches my knee with her own and asks, “Why’d you shoot so low?”
I Just Made a Killing on a Starter Home I Bought for Cheap. I Didn’t Expect to Feel Like This.
A couple offered to buy our house and it made me cry.
The Business of Being Edgar Allan Poe
Poe is remembered as the inventor of the horror genre, thanks to Halloween-friendly poems and stories like “The Raven” and “The Tell-tale Heart.” But his creative work can be seen as another kind of business enterprise, charting his valiant but often futile attempts to “coin one’s brain into silver.” This makes him an instructive example today, when new technologies mean that creators face some of the very same problems that they did in the 19th century, including an oversupplied market and the proliferation of free content.
How to Deal with Rejection (and Get Revenge) Like Edgar Allan Poe
Doubling down on your ambitions is the best way to get revenge, and no one ever knew this better than Poe.
Failure to launch: Why so many American millennials feel adulthood is a lie
“My mom had five kids by the time she was my age. My dad was starting his second career. And I’m still punching in my parents’ landline at CVS to get the discount.”
Confessions of a TV Tourist
Pam Beesly broke my heart. It wasn’t so much that she married someone else—namely Dunder Mifflin paper salesman Jim Halpert. It was that she first dropped out of art school in New York, schlepped back home to Scranton, and then got married.
How Gaby Dunn found that being 'Bad with Money' can be good for your career
Gaby Dunn can't listen to her own podcast — at least not the early episodes. "I'm really embarrassed about things that I said," she admits, particularly the details she revealed about her bank balance and conversations she'd had with her student-loan servicer. But that's exactly what makes "Bad With Money With Gaby Dunn" so fresh.
I Spent $11,537 Becoming a Blonde
When I realized my hair was turning orange under the white dye goo, I finally hit send on the text I was hoping to avoid: “EMERGENCY. I’m getting something really stupid done to my hair.”
Millennials are obsessed with side hustles because they're all we've ...
What happens when a generation raised with a “you can be whatever you want to be” ethos meets the worst job market in years?
The good news about failing at absolutely everything in your 20s
A couple nights ago, I stumbled across a cache of rejection letters – possibly one of the largest deposits of rejection letters recorded in human history. They were all addressed to me.
Do you have to move to New York City to make it as a writer? I asked my literary idols to find out
A few weeks ago, I was visiting New York City, standing in the top floor of The Whitney, staring at the museum’s giant burning candle of Julian Schnabel, when God spoke to me.
How I Tried to Buy a Better Life With $400 in Subscription Boxes
Some people can do self-improvement without self-loathing or recrimination, without descending into the kind of zealous frenzy that prompts strangers to ask, “Is there someone I can call?” I am not one of them.
The Stupidly Simple Productivity Hack Hiding In Microsoft Word | Fast Company | The Future Of Business
I wrote this article in Focus mode, like everything else I write.