Age: 41

Location: New York City

What are you working on now?
? I'm co-writing a book about how trauma affects children's brains, personalities and lives with a leading child psychiatrist. He worked with the kids who survived the raid on the Branch Davidian complex in Waco, Texas. He's one of the people the FBI calls when they have a child who has witnessed or been a victim of a horrific crime. What some of these kids have gone through is beyond belief-- but their courage and strength and his insights into how to help them and what we can learn from how trauma affects them are fascinating and important.

What's the most helpful thing you've learned about writing?
Three cliches: show don't tell, write what you know and kill your darlings. And, yeah, avoid cliches.

What's been the worst career advice you've ever received?
Don't specialize. One of the things that has most helped me in my career is having specialized knowledge of things like neuroscience and drug policy which dramatically reduces the amount of competition I face and gives me an edge in my reporting. Many journalists can write a celebrity profile-- but very few can write competently about complex brain science and the intersection between biology and public policy and what it means.

Did you learn anything with your newest book that helped hone your investigative skills?
Cultivating sources is probably the most important thing. I got some of my best material from people who had already done the hard slog of Freedom of Information Act requests and historical document research.