I am an author and journalist in New York City. I have contributed to many print and digital publications. My passions are culture and the arts, politics, social theory, social science, and media. I have written about all these topics for such publications as The Nation, Film Comment, Newsday, Gay City News, The Advocate, Cineaste, In These Times, The Italian American Review, and Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide. I also am a contributor to the online publications PopMatters, The New York Journal of Books, La Voce di New York, Rootsworld, and I-Italy.

My well-reviewed non-fiction book, An Offer We Can’t Refuse: The Mafia in the Mind of America, explores some of my longstanding preoccupations as a writer: cultural mythologies and their social impact; ethnic identity and stereotypes; popular culture, especially film, and how such social categories as race, class, sexuality, and gender interact in American society. I also am a contributing author to many other books, including The Essential Sopranos Reader (University of Kentucky Presses); Mafia Movies (University of Toronto); Re-thinking The Godfather 50 Years Later (Casa Lago Press); Our Naked Lives (Bordighera Press); The Routledge History of the Italian Americans; Mediated Ethnicity (University of the City of New York); Is the Mafia Still a Force in America? (Greenhaven Press); American Voices: Culture and Community (McGraw Hill); Writing in a Changing World: Writer's Guide with Handbook, (Longman UK); Witness to Revolution: The Advocate reports on gay and lesbian politics, 1967-1999 (Alyson Press); Reggae, Rastafarians, Revolution: Jamaican Music from Ska to Dub (Schirmer Ltd.)

I also have written about the AIDS pandemic, Latin American literature, Spanish film, Italian politics, Sicilian cuisine, Afro-Cuban, African, and other world music, blues, and jazz.

I have been a consultant to, and on-camera interviewee, in several documentaries, including the acclaimed PBS four-part series, The Italian Americans (2015). I also have presented research and cultural criticism at conferences and film festivals in the US and Europe.