I am never bored at work. 

Upcoming work: Preservation, Condé Nast Traveler, Food Technology, JTA, Nashville Scene, Crain’s Chicago Business, Wildsam, and an updated edition of the Moon Tennessee and Moon Nashville guidebooks. 

Recent work: re:porter, National Geographic, Going, Chicago Magazine, The Emancipator, VinePair,  Outside Business Journal, Preservation, Condé Nast Traveler, Saving Places, PUNCH, No Depression, Lonely Planet, Nashville Scene, Kveller, InsideHook. My graphic novel for kids, It’s Her Story: Irena Sendler, was published in May 2023 by Sunbird Books.

In 2025, I started a travel column for NFocus magazine, highlighting luxury travel destinations in driving distance from Nashville.

My Moon Memphis (with chapters on Little Rock and Hot Springs) guidebook, which features years of research on the Bluff City, was published in January 2020. My Moon Nashville to New Orleans Road Trip guidebook to the 444-mile Natchez Trace Parkway was published in January 2018 and was completely updated for 2021, with additional resources on travel in the Mississippi Delta.

I am a Master Gardener of Davidson County and write a quarterly gardening column for Tennessee Home & Farm magazine.

I regularly appear on the CityCast Nashville podcast.

Past events:

I moderated a panel on long-time, family-owned restaurants at the Music City Food & Wine Festival.

I moderated a panel at the  M.F.K. Fisher Symposium for Women in Food & Storytelling on April 5, 2025.

My art installation, Are We Done Yet?, explored the nature of not-yet-completed projects and what it means to be “done” through a collection of unfinished art pieces. Members of the community were encouraged to drop off their unfinished projects or to work on someone else’s, without any pressure to get it “done.” The show was on exhibit at Julia Martin Gallery in April 2025.

 

I got to talk about my ASJA-Award-winning Atlanta Journal-Constitution article at the annual ASJA Conference on Sept. 25, 2024.

I modeled in Nashville’s inclusive Fashion is For Every Body show.

I talked about my Nashville Scene cover story on women-owned music venues for the Nashville Scene podcast.

I was part of the School Library Journal Day of Dialog.

I moderated a discussion with Micheline Maynard, author of Satisfaction Guaranteed, on May 2, 2023, as part of the Nashville Jewish Book Series. Other panelists included Max Goldberg, Benjamin Goldberg and Jono Gluck.

I got to read at the Southern Festival of Books.

I taught Travel Writing at The Porch again and will do so again on April 1, 2025. Here’s a testimonial one of my students left in Spring 2022: “If Margaret had been my professor in college I sure would have learned a lot more than I did. She’s AMAZING! Knowledgable, smart, great experience, kind and intuitive about asking the right questions to get us to think and participate.”

I moderated a hybrid panel on Defining Nashville’s Culinary Arts Impact at Nashville Design Week.

I talked about the movie “Shiva Baby” at the Belcourt Theater’s remote 2021 Living Room Film Club with the Nashville Scene.

I moderated a (remote) discussion with Sue Eisenfeld, author of Wandering Dixie, as part of the 2020-2021 Nashville Jewish Book Series. I was co-chair of the 2022-2023 series.

I interviewed whitewater kayaker Dane Jackson for the River Talks podcast, a project of the Cumberland River Compact.

I’ve spoken on panela at the New York Times Travel Show,at the Travel Adventure Show in the Bay Area, the Bay Area Book Festival, and at The Bookshop in Nashville.