I am the director of the Yale Journalism Initiative and the author of A Flower Traveled in My Blood, a forthcoming history of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo. Between 1976 and 1983, Argentina’s armed forces stole hundreds of newborn babies and young children from women they deemed “subverisve,” placing many of them with military and police families to raise. My book tells the story of the grandmothers who banded together to find them—donning disguises, confronting brutal military officers, and even pioneering new forms of genetics testing to reclaim their grandchildren and reunite their families.

The Abuelas’ story has captivated me since 2011, when I moved to Buenos Aires and began working as The Economist’s correspondent in Argentina—and I am thrilled to be partnering with the wonderful team at Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster to publish it on July 15, 2025.

BEFORE STARTING THIS BOOK, I FOCUSED ON THE AMERICAN WEST AND MAGAZINE FEATURE WRITING

After packing my suitcases (mostly with jars of dulce de leche) and leaving Argentina in 2015, I spent three more years at The Economist — in London, writing for the international desk, and eventually Los Angeles, where I covered California and the American West. I worked hard—writing a cover story on how to harness the talents of adults on the autism spectrum—and had lots of fun, road-tripping through newly formed national monuments and reporting from inside the frigid bowels of cryotherapy chambers. (Regarding the sorry picture in that last piece, there's a moral to the story: establish ground rules before sending your editor embarrassing reporting photos.)

But over time, I began itching to tell stories that might inspire empathy and wonder as well as thought. In 2018, I decided to go freelance to do just that.

I have trekked through the Amazon to write about bizarre insects for National Geographic, marveled at pastures full of cloned polo horses for Vanity Fair, and sped along the St. Lawrence River with professional bass fishermen for The New York Times. (And I thought I had a cool job.) For Outside Magazine, I have retraced the epic histories of two rock climbers whose deaths hold lessons about how to live and profiled “The Bite Club”, a support group for shark attack survivors. I have written about a tiny rocket company with big ambitions and the race to replicate breastmilk in a lab for MIT Technology Review, two dogged American lawyers trying to hunt down Ferdinand Marcos’s pilfered fortune for Bloomberg Businessweek, and inmates who tame wild horses for 1843.

These stories might seem disparate, but they share a common theme: They’re all about people consumed by obsession—whether with a sport, an idea, a desire to change, or a drive to make change. My own passion is finding, reporting, and sharing true stories that educate readers about important themes and events while entertaining them at the same time. I feel very lucky to spend my days doing such work.

When I’m not reading, writing, or casting hexes on my blank screen as I attempt to write, you can find me chasing after my young daughters or tramping through the woods with my equally unruly husband and pups. (Click the link. In their defense, it is a very sad book.)

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Click the images above to see my work organized by outlet.