I have been a writer, mostly on music, for almost thirty years, publishing eleven books and something over a thousand articles in the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times and various other newspapers and magazines (many of which can be read in my articles archive), as well as album notes for various CD projects (which are listed on the music and albums page), and a few political commentaries.

My books, in reverse chronological order (with some collaborative projects at the bottom), are:

American Epic: The Companion Book to the PBS Series
(Simon & Schuster, 2017, with Bernard MacMahon and Allison McCourty)

A journey through the early wave of American rural field recordings, focusing on a dozen key artists: The Memphis Jug Band, The Carter Family, Elder J. E. Burch, Dick Justice and the Williamson Brothers, Charley Patton, the Hopi Indian Chanters, Joseph Kekuku, Lydia Mendoza, the Breaux Family, and Mississippi John Hurt. Bernard and Allison traveled across the United States, seeking out family and acquaintances of the original recording artists and assembling a unique collection of interviews, images, and ephemera. The main project was a multi-hour film that aired on PBS, but there is also a terrific box set of recordings and this book, which I pulled together from their materials.

 River of Song: A Musical Journey Down the Mississippi
(St. Martin’s Press, 1998, with John Junkerman)

This is the book version of a four-part PBS TV series sponsored by the Smithsonian, in which we traveled the length of the Mississippi, visiting musicians who seemed representative of each region, from gospel choirs to blues singers, German polka to riot grrl punk bands to Spanish ballad singers. The book is full of photographs and interview segments, designed to introduce the regions and musical styles, but, above all, the musicians themselves. There a lot more information on River of Song’s website, and you might also want to check out the companion CD on the Music and Albums page. This book is widely available (sometimes as a low-priced cut-out so shop around).

Exploding the Gene Myth

This is an exploration of the complexities, misinformation and dangers of the new genetics technologies. The primary author is my mother, Ruth Hubbard, a biochemist who taught for many years at Harvard University. My job was to make it all easily readable by laypeople like myself. It is meant as a guide to the pitfalls of all the new genetic breakthroughs being ballyhooed in the popular and scientific press, dealing with questions like who really gains from genetic testing and how genuine are the "discoveries" of genes for this or that condition. It has been regularly updated with prefaces and epilogues, and is also available in Spanish, Japanese, and Korean.