David A. Plotz is a journalist. Currently, he He appears on the weekly Slate Political Gabfest podcast with John Dickerson and Emily Bazelon.Previously, Plotz was C.E.O. of the online magazine Atlas Obscura. He began his career in journalism at the Washington City Paper. He then joined Slate when it launched in 1996.Plotz's work has appeared in Slate, The New York Times Magazine, Harper's, Reader's Digest, Rolling Stone, New Republic, The Washington Post, Business Insider, and GQ. His first book, "The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank," was published in 2005, and his second book, "Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned when I Read Every Single Word of the Bible," was published in 2009.Plotz received his A.B. from Harvard University, where he also wrote for The Harvard Crimson.He has been a writer with Slate since its inception in 1996. Before that Plotz was a paralegal for the Department of Justice, then switched to journalism and wrote for the Washington City Paper.He hosts the Slate Podcast "Political Gabfest."