Public Writing, Projects, and Interviews

Digital Projects

SCU Native Walking Tour: bit.ly/SCU-NativeTour

Ohlone Heritage Website. To be published to the SCU Community Heritage Lab website, Winter 2022.

“SCU Native History Walking Tour.” Google Tour Builder and StoryMapJS. Published to Community Heritage Lab website, Fall 2021.

“Colonial Pandemics: Misremembering Disease at Mission Santa Clara.” Digital poster project. Twin Pandemics Forum. SCU, Fall 2020.

Public Writing

“Consignment.” With David Keaton. Belt Publishing’s Louisville Anthology, 2020.

Non-fiction essay about gender, class identity, and commodification.

“’Have Fun in the Sun!’ The (Im)personal Archive of High School Yearbooks.” LA Review of Books, 18 June 2019. 

I’ve studied these books in dusty archives, learning about the lives of (mostly long-dead) strangers from across the country. I’ve also amassed a considerable collection of other people’s high school memories from yard sales and eBay. But I hadn’t paid much attention to the way my own yearbooks are the intersection between what I study and what I have lived. They are the connection between my past and the past. And as thousands of high schoolers circulate their own yearbooks today, this historical genre connects us all to the present and future as well.

“How High Schools Shaped American Cities.” The Atlantic, 23 Oct. 2018. 

This article traces the history of public high schools as institutions shaping the broader public’s engagement and sense of community in US cities.

“Something Seems Terribly wrong With my 20s.” In “Classroom Confidential.” John Branston. Memphis Flyer 14 Dec. 2006, Vol. 1, No.929. Print.

In this brief creative nonfiction piece (published anonymously as part of the cover feature), I reflect on the challenges of teaching fourth grade in Memphis, Tennessee, as a Teach For America corps member. It is a humorous sketch of the tensions between educational ambitions and the daily realities of life in the classroom for a young new teacher.

Interviews and Appearances

“English Professors Study More Than Books.” Academic Minute, Sept. 27, 2021.

“Amy Lueck: A Shared History.” Conversations About Writing, University of Louisville, forthcoming.