Elyse Moody

I’m getting ready for a Caribbean vacation (!!), inspired in part by a piece I researched for Refinery29 this week. Unfortunately, we’re not going to any of the places I picked out, although Sayulita, Mexico, near Puerto Vallarta, is at the top of my list for next time. For anyone else lucky enough to get a spring…

I’m a huge fan of Eudora Welty’s fiction, especially her short stories, so I was thrilled to be assigned a review of Anne Tyler’s latest, A Spool of Blue Thread. Pulitzer-winning Tyler, who writes mainly about Baltimore, is considered a modern-day incarnation of the late, great Mississippian; she herself has said she admires Welty a great deal. Like Welty, Tyler…

I corresponded last week with UVA-based astrophysicist Sabrina Stierwalt, PhD, who is one of L’Oréal USA’s 2014 Women in Science fellowship recipients. Read more about her work — she’s planning to use part of the funding to travel to Chile to use the Magellan Telescopes to further her research into dwarf galaxies — in my #TechTalk10…

On the set for a recent ELLE photo shoot, I met the incredible Chrissy Beckles, a former boxing champion who now runs one of the most heartwarming charities I’ve heard of in a very long time. (The New York Times has this excellent profile of her diverse career.) Beckles founded the Sato Project to rescue Puerto Rican…

…is the salmon salsa verde actress Tracy Pollan made for her family’s dinner for ELLE’s October Living feature. (I got to try it, and it was literally the best fish I’ve ever had.) Tracy sources her fish from Dorian’s Seafood Market on the Upper East Side, which just so happens to ship nationwide. In talking with Tracy…

It’s no secret: I love a good ghost story. But Katy Simpson Smith’s incantatory debut novel, The Story of Land and Sea, which I reviewed for ELLE’s September issue, replaces the usual gothic bluster with narration that is plainspoken and even puritanical. That’s not to say Smith skimps on the shivers — in rendering a…

Journalist Helen Thorpe’s new book, Soldier Girls, investigates three women National Guard members who signed up for the stateside benefits–some had never traveled outside Indiana–and found themselves in Afghanistan and Iraq. Thorpe tells the full story of how unexpected wartime deployments affected every aspects of their lives: from school and health to family to romance. It’s…

From skin care to relationships to home decoration to chasing down a literary legend, ELLE’s July issue for me was all about the DIY spirit. I learned a couple of important things–click  through (or pick up a copy on newsstands) to read more: 1) Manuka honey just might be able to solve all your problems.…

For ELLE’s June issue, I interviewed Rachel Blumenthal, fashion maven and founder of chic parenting site Cricket’s Circle, and summer-hair guru Ward Stegerhoek, for their advice on summer dressing and hair styling. Click through for more from Rachel and from Ward.

Ever wonder whether lucid dreaming and meditation can help redirect your waking life? I checked out an artsy exploration of the idea at NYC’s Rubin Museum this spring — called a “Dream-Over” — and wrote about it for ELLE.com. Read more here.