Journalist and contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine
What writers say
“As any writer who has spoken to me since I started working with David already knows, there is nothing I like more than telling every writer to consider working with David as an editor and coach. In just a few months I feel like he’s provided me with the very best tools, support, and guidance, all of which have become necessary to my current writing and indispensable to my future. I am so grateful to him for providing the services he does, and am certain you will be too.”
Haley Mlotek, organizer, editor, and the author of No Fault: A Memoir of Romance and Divorce
“Dave is a generous, wise, and perceptive coach whose blend of craft, conceptual insight, and incisive guidance has made him an invaluable thought partner as I work on my book. Our conversations range from the granular details of a sentence to the foundational questions of voice, and from the undertow of an idea to the broader dynamics of a cultural phenomenon. Working with him has honed not only my writing but also my thinking.”
Lauren Mackler, writer and curator
“When I work with Dave as an editor, I feel seen as a writer. He turns cut-to-fit necessities into opportunities to sharpen a draft without sacrificing essential substance, style, and voice. I feel just as seen when Dave’s my coach. He has a gift for soliciting words as well as excising them. With a landscaper’s eye, he encourages my bramble of prose to grow one way rather than another. He’s blunt as a building contractor telling you a structure won’t hold up, kind as a neighbor who helps you fix what’s broken. Our regular sessions during my last big project were the highlight of my working week.”
Susan Stryker, lapsed academic, autotheorist and author of Changing Gender (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2026).
“Dave is one of my favorite editors to work with—he’s knowledgeable, patient, funny, creative, and excited about the possibilities of what a magazine and cultural criticism can do. (But not annoyingly excited—crucially, he’s very low-key.) His light touch does not prevent him from pointing out horrific, glaring problems. I’ve never once felt wronged or that my pieces had irrevocably changed for the worse while working with him, and that is extremely rare.”
Lauren Oyler, critic and author of the novel Fake Accounts
