These days, I’m mostly writing at my Substack, but here are some older things I’ve written. — Penny.

Notes on Quotes (Or, The Problem of Quotation, Authorship and Authority) (2018).

A stupid grammar dispute leads to a larger consideration of how documentaries contend with quotation.

Notes on Bad Documentaries (Or, Can a Documentary Be So Bad It’s Good?) (2017).

An essay about what's so good about bad documentaries (and seeking your nominations!).

Notes on Truth (Or, Documentary in the Post-Truth Era) (2016).

An essay about the importance of truth for our survival as a species and (sigh) Donald Trump.

Notes on Under the Gun (Or, When is Fiction a Crime?) (2016).

An essay about the ethics of documentary editing and the curious case of the single edit that led to a libel suit.

Notes on Vaxxed (Or, Not Lying but Being Wrong) (2016).

A follow-up essay about my open letter to Tribeca and a meditation on the terror of being wrong.

Notes on the Footnote (Should Documentary Films Have Footnotes?) (2016).

An essay in which I consider the case for footnotes and explain how and why I wrote 319 footnotes for my film NUTS!

An Open Letter to Tribeca Film Festival About Vaxxed (2016).

This began as a Facebook post, which Filmmaker Magazine reposted; it was quoted in lots of news outlets.

Our Nixon Filmmakers Explain to Ben Stein How Filmmaking Works (2013).

(Ok, that's not really the title; it's the title of Bryce Renninger's post about it and I'm adopting it forever.) Brian and I wrote a rebuttal to Ben Stein's misleading Daily Beast review of Our Nixon.

Some interviews I've done with filmmakers:

Eric Daniel Metzgar (2010)
Sam Green(2010)
James T. Hong (2010)
Vanessa Renwick (2011)
Jennifer Montgomery (2011)
Jim Finn (2010)
Rebecca Richman Cohen (2011)

Psychogeographies: Four Films About Place and Time (2011).

An essay I wrote about one of the Flaherty NYC shows I programmed.

"Mame Faye" and Other Myths from the Golden Age of Prostitution (2008).

An essay I wrote for On The Issues magazine. 

A Timeline of Abortion Stories in U.S. Popular Media (2004-on).

Way back when I was making The Abortion Diaries, part of my research led to this list. A lot of people have written to me to say it is a useful resource, but I'm no longer actively updating it.