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Thom Dunn is a Boston-based writer, musician, and utterly terrible dancer. He is the singer/guitarist for the indie rock/power-pop the Roland High Life, as well as a staff writer for the New York Times’ Wirecutter and a regular contributor at BoingBoing.net. Thom enjoys Oxford commas, metaphysics, and romantic clichés (especially when they involve whiskey), and he firmly believes that Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" is the single greatest atrocity committed against mankind. He is a graduate of Clarion Writer's Workshop at UCSD ('13) & Emerson College ('08).

I Drove A Lyft To Rate The Best Standard & Wireless Charging Car Phone Mounts →

My latest work for Wirecutter is about phone mounts for your car, including those with wireless charging capabilities — and this one’s particularly fun, because I got to drive a Lyft for a week in order to do my testing, with a dozen mounts and 3 phones and an iPad all spread across my dashboard the entire time.

I do have some weird/interesting stories to share, although you won’t find them in the articles. Mostly it was just chauffeuring Cornell kids between frat parties and Target. But perhaps the weirdest part was that … no one thought it was weird that I had a dozen mounts and 3 phones and an iPad in my car at any given time? 🤔

4 things the Left keeps getting wrong about gun reform. →

Another day, another awful tragedy. Several months ago, I'd pitched a story to Huffington Post about tangible, rational, fact-based suggestions to help curb the epidemic of gun violence in America—specifically, things that might be a little uncomfortable for Left-leaning liberals to acknowledge, but things that would actually make a difference (and have a chance of getting passed).

But every time we planned to publish it, it was always felt too uncomfortably close to another mass shooting. So we put it off for a while longer, again and again and again.

Then Las Vegas struck. And if it wasn't clear before (it was), then it certainly is now (it is) that the time to talk about gun violence is right now, and the longer we put it off out of some kind of expectation of polite social courtesy, then the higher the body count will climb. 

So here it is. Now let's do something about it.

(I also had the privilege of speaking with Chris Frates on the Smerconish Show on Sirius XM Potus Politics. You'll need to be a Sirius subscriber to listen, but we had a great chat about finding common ground on gun violence issues, which inspired some wonderful call-in comments from listeners as well)

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More Fictional Music Stuff

I actually wrote this article quite while ago, and I was pleasantly surprised to see it hit the waves of the Internet today. Similar to another post I did over at Tor, this one breaks down a few of my favorite fictional rock bands (some of which have managed to become nonfictional as well, which is a particularly impressive feet). Check it out!

Five Of Our Favorite Fictional Bands at Quirk Books

Rock N Roll High School

My newest article for Quirk Books is now live, a breakdown of fictional schools to both increase and decrease the impact of your own September woes. Did I mention that it starts with an epigraph from the greatest television show of all time (also known as The Adventures of Pete & Pete)? 'Cause it does. Now enough dilly-dallying. Go check it out!

"The Best & Worst Fictional Schools Of All Time" at Quirk Books

SuperBeer to the Rescue!

Head on over to the fine folks at Quirk Books and check out my world-famous (read: on the internet) Comic Book & Beer Pairings article on their blog! It's comic books, and beer, together. What more could you possibly want? Also, shout out to Quirk's Marketing & Social Media Coordinator Eric Smith for the fantastic pictures that he scrounged together to accompany each entry. They help make the article extra awesome-worthy.