Welcome! I'm a writer in Washington, D.C., who looks for stories that resonate beyond the Beltway. And I'm committed to telling those stories well. In 2014, I published a widely shared feature story in Slate on straight spouses—straight men and women who used to be married to gay partners. Over the course of a year, I interviewed a cross-section of sources, including a psychotherapist who helps straight spouses adjust to life on the other side of the closet door and the founder of a suburban D.C. chapter of the Gay Married Men's Association.
I can't shake my love for a good essay, often combining the personal with the critical. I've written about the language of sexual assault for DAME Magazine; my tough-guy dad, “Brooklyn Tommy,” for The Toast; schadenfreude for The Morning News; and on a range of topics for other publications.
In my previous life, I covered Capitol Hill for a Bloomberg subsidiary. At some point, I will write about the time a member of Congress asked me—lucky me, the only female reporter in sight—what I thought it was like to birth a conference report and compared it to passing his kidney stone.
I mostly write nonfiction, because you really can't make up gems like that. I have a master's degree in nonfiction writing from Johns Hopkins University. I’m also dabbling in fiction and having more fun with it than I ever could have imagined. Editorial assignments welcome! Please email me at chgrimaldi [at] gmail [dot] com. Or, you can connect below. Thanks!