It’s been a surreal week in Boston. First, two bombs exploded at the 117th Boston Marathon, injuring almost 200 spectators and killing 3 people. Then, just as it seemed the chaos was winding down, a violent manhunt stretching from Cambridge to Watertown put the whole city on lockdown.

On Wednesday night, the in short time between the bombings and the lockdown, I went to the Washington Square Marathon Sports store in Brookline, where a group of almost 50 runners met to go on a run around the nearby Chestnut Hill Reservoir. We ran to remember the victims of the bombings, celebrate the running community, and most importantly, to lace up our shoes and get in a few good miles.

I produced a story for the CBC’s Day 6 about that run, and had the privilege of working with an incredibly supportive staff up in Canada. You can listen to the story on its own, or the entire podcast on the Day 6 website.

As a Chicagoan and a fan of good movies, I was saddened to hear of Roger Ebert’s passing. While many have written about his tremendous contributions to film criticism, I feel that Ebert’s lasting legacy has to do with his remarkable ability to adapt to changes in the media business. While his colleagues bemoaned the end of newspapers, the end of local TV, the end of long-form writing, Ebert simply sought out the next big thing in digital media and mastered it. I hope to be that flexible as I grow in my career.

I wrote an article about Roger Ebert’s legacy for Spinoff, which you can read here.

For this video, I produced, shot, and edited all the original footage. You can watch it below!

This week marks the end of my first month as a commentator on Spinoff Online, a website that reports on the latest in science fiction/comic book movies and TV shows. This is a terrific opportunity, and it’s been a ton of fun to write about everything from who should play a young Han Solo in an upcoming Star Wars film to why Americans have an obsession with stories about serial killers.

I’m looking forward to continuing to report on zombies, vampires, caped crusaders, and aliens from another world in the coming months. In the meantime, here are more highlights from my work at Spinoff:

• The Nielsen Company is taking steps toward measuring how people view TV content online, but this change has been slow in coming, and even slower to have an impact on the industry.
• Brit sitcom and Hulu favorite Spy will be remade for American audiences with Rob Corddry at the helm – but could it be as good as the original?
• As Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere resurfaces as a radio play on BBC4, I argue that American audiences should listen to more radio dramas.

Ever since Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the winner of the adApt NYC micro-housing design competition, it seems that everyone is talking about tiny apartments. In my reporting for Flavorwire, I found that New York isn’t the first city (nor the last) to build micro units. A Vancouver developer has built apartments so small that the bathroom is a closet-size alcove with frosted windows. In Boston, a designer proposes to save on space by making bathrooms and kitchens communal. Are these “dorms for grown-ups” just a fad, or a permanent part of the urban rental landscape?

If you’re a fan of the ABC show Happy Endings, then I don’t need to tell you about gross, funny, sweet Max Blum. Max is gay, but defies every stereotype about gay men in American culture. In light of Jodie Foster’s coming out speech at the Golden Globes, I wrote a feature for Flavorwire asking why we have yet to see a female version of Max on TV.

In my debut feature for The Billfold, I visit with Derek “Deek” Diedricksen as he leads a workshop for people interested in building tiny houses (those are houses under 200 square feet!). I also talk with tiny house veterans, like Libby Reinish and Tristan Chambers, owners of the super-small Whittled Down Caravan.

In a matter of days, one of the most ambitious projects I’ve been privileged to work on finally hits the air. BackStory with the American History Guys features three historians telling the stories you only think you know from America’s past. The first episode, on the history of birth, airs May 11 on national NPR stations.