And we’re back! This post is going to be a more useful, less goofball update to my original humor writing post from 10 years ago(!), called “How to write funny shit for your blog.” What makes me qualified to talk about humor writing in an authoritative manner? Pardon the humble-brag,…

Since its release in late-2016, it’s become a welcome tradition that I do an in-bookstore reading from Backpacking with Dracula each year around Halloween. That’s not happening this year, due to the U.S. transforming into a belligerent, failed, plague state, so I decided to do a reading via my very…

I decided it was time to start writing humor again and applying for The Onion’s 2020/2021 fellowship seemed the perfect jump-start. Spoiler alert: It was.

It is with enormous satisfaction and pride that I announce the publication of my first solo, book-length project, a Romania travel memoir called Backpacking with Dracula. Honestly, so many nights and weekends have been dedicated to working on this project for the past year and a half, I guess the prevailing…

Why yes, this is a full-tilt, vanity listicle, shamelessly basking in personal achievement in the Lonely Planet universe. You wanna make something of it? All right, then. I’ve already forgotten how this got started, but for some reason I was cataloging all the Lonely Planet articles I’d written from late-2010…

In February, Killing Batteries celebrated its sixth birthday. It occurred to me that I should post something back then, but I didn’t because, while I had many things to say, I couldn’t ignore the fact that ultimately I had no point. And “What’s Your Point?” is high on my top…

Disclosure: That even on my best day, my book reviewing skills are amateurish notwithstanding, I am good friends with Doug and have therefore opted to skip doing a book review in favor of an only sporadically serious interview on his travels and scoring his first book, Europe on 5 Wrong…

Some days the requisite pitching that goes with being a freelance writer is akin to being the homeliest bachelor at the ball. Out of 20 women you ask to dance, 19 either say ‘no’ or don’t acknowledge your presence at all and the last one says “Yes! Just let me…

What’s the secret to my modest success as a freelance writer? Timing? (“Bad timing” still counts as timing.) Dreamy eyes? Liberal amounts of humor writing? Let’s say it’s a delightful combination of all three. Humor writing is the great equalizer in the world of writing. The ability to write funny…

I haven’t bothered Googling to find out for sure – because who has time? – but on the strength of mounting evidence, a post on how to set up a travel blog apparently doesn’t exist and is long overdue. [If reading makes you sleepy, you can now watch me read…