Her book Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Bengah was published by Harper Collins in June. She is editor of Letters from Black America (Farrar, Straus & Giroux 2009; Beacon Press, 2011), and A Love No Less: More Than Two Centuries of African American Love Letters (Doubleday 2004), and is the author of Within the Veil: Black Journalists, White Media, (NYU Press 2000), which won the National Press Club Award for Media Criticism. Prior to joining the New York University journalism faculty where she is director of undergraduate studies, she worked at four successive news organizations, including New York Newsday where she was part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team. She holds an undergraduate journalism degree from New York University and masters’ and doctorate degrees from Columbia University.