About

I’m Jordan and I like stories. And I hope you do too, because I think stories are one of the most important engines for understanding and improving ourselves and others.

Before becoming a writer, I worked in nonprofits and served in the Peace Corps. Before that, I was a kid who watched an absurd amount of cartoons. My plan was to join the Foreign Service and live a life abroad, but I abandoned those plans to write and never looked back. (To my knowledge, the Foreign Service hasn’t made a single good cartoon.)

I have a B.A. in sociology and criminal justice, a B.S. in psychology, and a master’s degree in public policy. I’m editor in chief at the site Lifehacker and host of the podcast The Upgrade. My memoir, Piccolo Is Black, is about growing up without diverse representation in media and the mental hurdles many of us leapt over to see ourselves in the stories we loved. I live in New York City.