My work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, shortlisted for the James Beard Foundation’s MFK Fisher Distinguished Writing Award, and received the McGinnis-Ritchie Award for nonfiction. One piece was included in Best American Essays 2016, edited by Jonathan Franzen and Bob Atwan, with six others selected as notables between 2013 and 2022. My essays have also been reprinted in Holly Hughes’ Best Food Writing 2017, Jay McInerney’s Wine Reads: A Literary Anthology of Wine Writing (2018), Longreads, The Rumpus, Internazionale, Rigas Laiks and Scena9.

Memoir

“La un moment dat în rătăcirile noastre călcăm o limită care ne schimbă viața” / Scena 9
“Survival Mode” / The London Magazine
“I Spent My Life Avoiding Thrills. Then My Son Discovered Roller Coasters” / The Walrus
“Ziua în care a murit Regina” (“The Day the Queen Died“) / Scena9
“Modul de supraviețuire” / Scena9
“The Professor” / Longreads (Best American Essays 2022 notable)
“Tongue Stuck” / The Rumpus
“Trash” / The Dalhousie Review
“How to Learn Everything: The MasterClass Diaries” / Longreads (Best American Essays 2021 notable)
“Someone is Wrong on the Internet: A Study in Pandemic Distraction” / Literary Hub
“Home truths: A dispatch from Germany” /Times Literary Supplement
“O limbă lipită de cerul gurii” / Scena9
“Reading Lessons” How We Read: Tales, Fury, Nothing, Sound. Eds. Kaitlin Heller and Suzanne Conklin Akbari (Reprinted in Longreads, Best American Essays 2020 notable)
“The Kid Is All Right: In Defense of Picky Eating” / Serious Eats (Italian in Internazionale)
“An Unreliable Alchemy” / The Marginalia Review of Books
“Swan, Late: The Unexpected Joys of Adult Beginner Ballet” Longreads (Best American Essays 2018 notable)
“The Things We Take, The Things We Leave Behind” / Southwest Review (Romanian in Scena9, Best American Essays 2017 notable)
“Dance, Mama” / The Manifest-Station
“My Father and the Wine.” The Yale Review (reprinted in Best American Essays 2016; Wine Reads: A Literary Anthology of Wine Writing)
“Currywurst” / Petits Propos Culinaires
“Tasting Texas” / Southwest Review (Best American Essays 2013 notable)

Short Prose and Poetry

“Heorot,” “The Son’s Dwelling” / Cōnfingō Magazine
“Criseyde” / Times Literary Supplement
“Dionysus at 3 p.m.” / Southwest Review
“Flesh Catalogue”, “Composition” / Cōnfingō Magazine
“Line” / Brevity Magazine 
“Improv” / Iberian Connections
“Shift” / The Enneadecameron

Criticism, Visual Arts

“The Louvre puts on its first fashion show” / Apollo Magazine
“Sheila Hicks and the art of infinite possibility” / Apollo Magazine
“On Reichenau Island” / London Review of Books
“The optical allusions of Constantin Brancusi” / Apollo Magazine
“The Norman Conquest of the European Imagination” / Apollo Magazine
“Echoes of Eco in his library: A portrait of the writer through his books” / Times Literary Supplement
“We’re all Jessica Rabbit Now. Self-fashioning for the YouTube generation” / TLS
“Hidden Treasures at the Met Museum” / In the Middle

Criticism, Books

“The Wedding Cake Was a Triumph. The Marriage Went Stale” / New York Times
“Please, Sir? Mark Kingwell is just asking” / Literary Review of Canada
“The Great Leap Backward” / New York Review of Books
“The Treachery of Translation” / The Dial
“Woman to woman: Breaking down stereotypes in medieval literature” / TLS
“Pimps and Prodigals” / London Review of Books
“Flavourless Bacon” / LRB
“How Do Certain Foods Become National Dishes?” / NYT
“More anchorite than athlete: A study of ballet focusing on ‘the women who didn’t make it’” / TLS
“Christ in Purple Silk” / LRB
“Permission to leave: Opening the books on communist Romania” / TLS
“Excellent women: Female agency in the medieval world” / TLS
“Positivity Is Overrated” / NYT
“The rest of the iceberg: Three guides to writing personal narrative” / TLS
“Scratch the surface: What psoriasis tells us about social outcasts” / TLS
“Bad Company: A New Novel Strips Away the Veneer of Progressive Rhetoric” / The Walrus
“Different words for blue: How mother tongues are lost and found” / TLS
“A Family Shatters Along With Yugoslavia” / NYT
“Industrious Habits” / New York Review of Books
“Smell the burn: What is the point of physical exercise?” / TLS
“The Beauty of Imperfection” / Los Angeles Review of Books
“A Heroine’s Journey: On Lana Bastašić’s “Catch the Rabbit”” / LARB
“Don’t Get Too Comfortable” / NYRB
“When You Roast Your Friends in a Book, and One’s Your Landlord” / NYT
“The Flower and the Bee” / LRB
“Let us now tell sad stories: Why we might write about trauma” / TLS
“Dudes Without Heirs” / NYRB
“Time travelling in comfort: An invitation to take guidance from the voices of the past” / TLS
“How to Read Aloud” / LRB
“In Praise of Solitude” / LARB
“Making My Moan” / LRB
“Quiet magic: The best ways to cultivate good writing” / TLS
“Theater of War” / NYT
“Cooking as a profound art: Reflections on the culinary and the literary” / TLS
“Heel turns: The history of modern celebrity” / TLS (Latvian in Rigas Laiks)
“Door Open for Beauty: On Deborah Tobola’s “Hummingbird in Underworld: Teaching in a Men’s Prison, a Memoir” LARB
“Renaissance Man” / NYT (Spanish in El Cultural)
“Physical, cultural, personal: The demands of dance” / TLS
“Hunger Games: Three Memoirs Where Food Takes Center Stage.” NYT
“Literature as Lifeline: The Exile in “Call Me Zebra”” / LARB

Brief reviews

“Medieval modernity: Ian Mortimer’s unorthodox argument for the importance of the Middle Ages” / TLS
“Catalogue of flops: Hans Magnus Enzensberger’s CV of failed projects” / TLS
“Melancholy catalogues: Kathryn Schulz’s powerful memoir about loss” / TLS
“Out of the bag: Understanding the strange power that animals exercise over people” / TLS
“Look backwards, fly forwards: A woman searches for her father – and herself – in fictional West Africa” / TLS
“Speaking in Tongues: Paul McQuade’s startling and casually surreal stories about language” / TLS
“Somewhat cheery: Hersh Dovid Nomberg’s tales of generational guilt and obstructed love” / TLS
“Rings of Sarajevo: The fears, losses – and successes – that thread through a life in exile” / TLS
“Stifled by cookie-cutters: Lessons in the art – and vocation – of publishing a book” / TLS
“Old love, new tricks: Revisiting a medieval bestseller” / TLS
“Homely ceremonies: Seeking pleasure in harsh circumstances” / TLS
“Dance Macabre” / TLS
“Dance” / TLS
“Electric conversations: Twenty-five writers reflect on the magazines and journals they have enjoyed over the years” / TLS
“Old English” / TLS 

Column

“Colour coded: The social history of saturated shades” / TLS
“How the other half lives: Medieval attitudes to social class” / TLS
“Harsh lessons: What makes a good teacher?” / TLS
“Away from it all: Restfully contemplative holiday reading” / TLS
“Signs of greatness: Childhood precocity and the saints” / TLS
“Making a name for herself: In search of Marie de France” / TLS
“Marginal lives: The genius of Sholem Aleichem” / TLS
“Anglo-Saxon Attitudes: The example of Saint Leoba” / TLS
“Lessons for leaders: The political power of “Havelok the Dane”” / TLS
“Calling a hack a hack: Satirical takes on the novelist” / TLS
“Sweet dreams: The cultural resonances of cake” / TLS
“Language of love: How to pick up a foreign tongue” / TLS
“Unconfined creativity: Art Brut and its lessons for all of us” / TLS
“Staying power: The rise and fall of literary reputations” / TLS
“Sanctity and sanctimony: How hermits avoided making a vice out of virtue” / TLS
“Tales for all time: Literary realism, from ‘Beowulf’ to Borges” / TLS
“Escape to the familiar: The heroics of everyday people” / TLS
“Epigrams and Epitaphs: Ways in which we are remembered” / TLS
“Burnout: Stress-busting with the medieval knights” / TLS
“Crying out loud: The irritating suffering of others” / TLS
“Always a crossword: The enduring power of puzzles” / TLS
“Terrible beauty: Unearthly good looks, from Beowulf to YouTube” / TLS
“Grief and terror: The words of war in Beowulf” / TLS
“The Devil’s shortcuts: ChatGPT and moralizing medieval tales” / TLS
“Fame is the spur: When stars lose their reputations” / TLS
“Travelling hopefully: Broadening minds or bad for the soul?” / TLS
“Prison language: The difficulties and comforts of mastering a foreign tongue while incarcerated” / TLS
“The cares of office: St Cuthbert’s management strategy” / TLS
“Taking advice: The popular medieval guides to self-help” / TLS
“The sleep of the just: Rest and relaxation in a world that will not wait” / TLS
“Before Bowdler: The long history of strategic rewriting” / TLS
“Shelf life: Judging books by their covers” / TLS
“Fine romances: The problems and pleasures of a genre that’s ‘easy to read but hard to write’” / TLS
“Give generously: What makes a good gift?” / TLS
“The need for greed: The other side of gluttony” / TLS
“Screen saver: The pleasure of limits in a limitless age” / TLS
“Eating their words: Physical encounters with books” / TLS
“In the family: Our suffocating desire to heal another person” / TLS
“Signal virtue: The pleasures of a confusing Old English Saint’s Life” / TLS
“A tale of two Alfreds: Burnt cakes and twice-foreign pasts” / TLS
“Old mischief in new guise: Keeping your focus in the age of distraction” / TLS
“The art of improv: Wobbling through life” / TLS
“Plain speaking: How to write well” / TLS
“Burnout culture: A disconnect between expectation and reality” / TLS
“Beyond the girlboss: On the representation of women” / TLS
“Our debt to pleasure: Nurturing delight in a dangerous world” / TLS

Essays

“Heir Mail” / Harper’s Magazine
“My favourite fictional academic” / Times Higher Education
“Why I’m No Longer a Proper Academic” / Creative Critical
“Will ChatGPT Kill the Student Essay? Universities Aren’t Ready for the Answer” / The Walrus
“Time for a Long Pause” / The Chronicle of Higher Education Review
“The void that fills the void” / European Review of Books
“The Frenzied Folly of Professorial Groupthink” / The Chronicle of Higher Education Review
“Addressing toxic behaviour is in universities’ interest” / Times Higher Education
“Rereading the Revolt” / Public Books
“Queen Kris” / Avidly
“Are you a toxic enabler?” / THE
“How to Cope With a Fear of Public Writing” / The Chronicle of Higher Education
“Get medieval on your haters: lessons from Beowulf and Chaucer” / Psyche
“Heroism should not be part of the academic job description” / THE
“Time to Get Over Your Discomfort With Book Marketing” / The Chronicle of Higher Education
“Struggling to exercise upward toxicity? Try toxic hypocrisy” / THE
“What Academics Misunderstand About ‘Public Writing’” / The Chronicle of Higher Education
“Ten rules for succeeding in academia through upward toxicity” / THE
“‘Bio-Nazis’ go green in Germany” / Politico Europe
“Teachers and Students” / Aeon
“Appetite (and iron-clad stomach) for success. The art of stuffing yourself while chancellor” / Politico.eu
“The Curious Appeal of ‘Bad’ Food” / The Atlantic (Reprinted in Best Food Writing 2017)
“‘Frivolous’ Humanities Helped Prisoners Survive in Communist Romania” / Zócalo Public Square
“War and the Food of Dreams: An Interview with Cara De Silva” / Rumba Under Fire: The Arts of Survival from West Point to Delhi, ed. Irina Dumitrescu
“Terpsichore” / Rumba Under Fire: The Arts of Survival from West Point to Delhi, ed. Irina Dumitrescu
“Why ‘that’ photo mattered this time: Our children could be on that beach, too” / Washington Post
“On the Future of Old English” / In the Middle
“The School’s Embrace.” / This Book is a Class Room, eds. Lucie Kolb and Romy Rüegger

Short pieces & Forum Contributions

“Will American academics flourish if they go abroad to escape Trump?” / THE
“How to start the academic day productively” / THE
“Summer books 2024” / TLS
“Books of the Year 2023” / TLS
“How to be happy in academia” / THE
“Summer books 2023” / TLS
“North of the future” / TLS
“Longing + debt” / European Review of Books
“What is the happiest academic career stage?” / THE
“A tropical atoll lies in prospect: Twenty TLS writers share their summer reading.” / TLS
“My worst teaching moment – and what it taught me” / THE
“Are you ready for the return to in-person teaching?” / THE
“Moving mountains: the reforms that would push academia to new heights” / THE
“Life in the Zoomiverse: What we miss about the physical campus” / THE
“Should you be working 100 hours a week?” / THE
“A Place of Absence, Loss, and Transcendence” / Zócalo Public Square