Her journalism has appeared in metropolitan newspapers and national magazines, but she is best known for her books on language: Sin and Syntax; Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch; and Wired Style.
[1] After graduating from Princeton, Hale spent a number of years writing fiction and drama and performing her own solo pieces in San Francisco.
[1] She completed her master's degree from the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, then worked as a reporter and editor at the Gilroy Dispatch, the Oakland Tribune, and the San Francisco Examiner, before taking a position as copy chief at Wired magazine.
That led to the publication of Wired Style: Principles of English Usage in the Digital Age, in 1996, and later to Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wickedly Effective Prose, in 1999, and "Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch: Let Verbs Power Your Writing," in 2012.
Her travel essays have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Dallas Morning News, Miami Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle, Via, Afar, and numerous anthologies.