Department of English

I teach journalism, nonfiction writing, literary journalism, a course in secrecy, and a class called “Press and Society,” which explores the changing role of the press in American culture and society. I am the author of two books, Nation of Secrets: The Threat to Democracy and the American Way of Life (2007) and The Book of Honor: Covert Lives And Classified Deaths At The CIA (2000), both from Doubleday. I am a former staff writer for The Washington Post and Time magazine, but I have also written for a wide range of other publications, including Smithsonian, National Geographic, The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, Slate, GQ, Mother Jones, The Boston Globe, Columbia Journalism Review and Newsweek. I have been a Pulitzer finalist and recipient of the George Polk Award, the Worth Bingham Prize, the Gerald Loeb Award, and Book-of-the-Year Award from Investigative Reporters and Editors (for The Book of Honor.) I have also had several grants and fellowships that have helped support my teaching, my reporting, and my writing -- a Thomas Watson Fellowship, a Fulbright Scholarship to China, a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, a fellowship with the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. My wife, Peggy, my sons, David and Matthew, and I live in Pepper Pike, Ohio. In the summer, I live in a log cabin in the woods not far from Bucksport, Maine where I write, read, and spend time with my family and chocolate lab, Cookie. My principal vices are billiards and guitar.