The Newsletter
The Last Reporter
Dispatches on the history, the writing, and the road to publication. Posts live on Substack — read them there.
October 25, 2026
Everything we know about the fall of Jerusalem comes from a man who switched sides.
Josephus fought Rome, surrendered to Rome, and then wrote the history of the war — on Rome's payroll. A reporter learns to read a source like that very carefully.
Read on Substack →
October 24, 2026
Yes, I Use AI to Help Write My Novel. Here’s Exactly How
The plot is mine. The characters are mine. The typos used to be mine too.
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October 21, 2026
The Stories I Never Got to Tell
Forty years of reporting, a time-traveling reporter, and a novel that comes out November 3
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October 19, 2026
They Ran Out of Room for the Crosses
In AD 70, Rome crucified Jerusalem’s starving poor by the hundreds every day. Most people have never heard of it.
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October 15, 2026
Time Travel Isn’t Crazy. Einstein Started It.
The science that let me send a modern reporter into ancient Jerusalem, and the Russian physicist’s rule that says he can’t change a thing.
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October 11, 2026
The Second Source: Meet Ray Mercer, Free
A free short story about the reporter at the center of The Tenth of Av, from back when a reporter still had somewhere to take a story.
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October 10, 2026
The Mystery of Pella: How Jerusalem’s Believers Got Out Before the Roman Slaughter
Rome destroyed Jerusalem in AD 70. By every ancient account, the city’s followers of Jesus were already gone. Here is the evidence, the case against it, and why I think it holds.
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October 9, 2026
They Told the President. Nobody Told Us.
Real secret programs, a thinning press corps, and why you should wonder what’s going on right now.
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October 5, 2026
The Jerusalem I Thought I Knew
Researching a novel set in AD 70 knocked down almost everything I believed about the city’s last years. It also showed me my own country more clearly.
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October 1, 2026
Thirty-Eight Years After The Chosen, Jerusalem Was Coming Apart
How a video shoot in Israel inspired me to send a skeptical modern reporter into the terrifying final years of first-century Jerusalem
Read on Substack →