Selected Nonfiction

The New York Times Magazine: I Tried To Toughen Up My Son. Things Didn’t Go As Planned.

The New York Times Magazine: Where Have All My Deep Male Friendships Gone?

The New York Times Book Review: How a Book About Gloves Inspired a Masterpiece by Philip Roth

The New York Times Book Review: They’re Not Lost in the Woods, They’re Thriving

I have an essay in Losers: Dispatches from the Other Side of the Scoreboard (Penguin 2020). The Wall Street Journal writes: “No anthology on losing would be complete without Boston, my adopted city. It used to be as adorable as a lost puppy—all rusted overpasses and broken hearts. Now it is title-town: endless winners’ parades and gleaming towers. Samuel Graham-Felsen, who once sold peanuts at Fenway Park, has the grace to recognize that the city of his childhood was united by its collective torment.”

The New York Times Magazine: Letter of Recommendation: The Pull-Up

Slate: The Code of Streetball

LitHub: On Freaks and Geeks

Medium: On Humiliation

Jewish Book Council: Writing Jewishly

Jewish Book Council: How My Grandfather Influenced My Writing Style

Buzzfeed Long Reads: Remade in Taiwan: Manny Ramirez’s Season Abroad

The Nation: Hard Times at Occupy Boston

The Nation: How Cyber-Pragmatism Brought Down Mubarak

The Washington Post: Why is Obama leaving the grass roots on the sidelines?

The Nation: The New Face of the Campus Left (Cover Story)