From the Archives: After the Apollo Program Ended, NASA Settled on a New, Less Glamorous Mission
The shuttle age commences, becomes routine, and draws to a close, while Mars beckons.
Gregory Curtis was born in Corpus Christi and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. He received a BA in English from Rice University and a master’s in English from San Francisco State College. While in San Francisco, he ran a very small printing and publishing company. He became a staff writer for Texas Monthly in 1972, just as the magazine was launched, and was promoted to editor in 1981, a position he held until 2000. In addition to Texas Monthly, he has written for the New York Times, New York Times magazine, Rolling Stone, Fortune, and Time. Curtis is the author of The Cave Painters and Disarmed: The Story of Venus DeMilo. He lives in Austin and is an adequate equestrian and aspiring magician.
Articles by Gregory Curtis
The Afterlife
In Dallas, our newly not-so-unpopular forty-third president tries to bend the arc of history’s judgment.
Disaster, Part One: Lubbock
West Texans are going to have to figure out what they’re going to do when the well runs dry.
A Case of the Blues
If the Southland gave birth to the blues, Mack McCormick wants to know the time and place of the blessed event.
The Uncertain Sage
A cool, brilliantly blue day in early February found me driving north from Austin on a sort of pilgrimage. I was going to see John Graves, the writer and gentleman farmer, now 73 years old, at his place on four hundred acres of rocky blackland prairie near Glen Rose. My…
Good-bye to a Horse
She named him Mark. I didn’t know why, any more than I knew why my daughter was drawn to riding in the first place. But I did know that she loved him—and that letting him go was the hardest thing she’d ever done.
A Letter to the Mayor
The Honorable Lee P. Brown Mayor of HoustonHouston, Texas Dear Mayor Brown, THANKS AGAIN FOR SEEING ME the other day. I’m always happy to have a reason to go to Houston City Hall. It’s not much to look at from the outside, but inside it’s…
Who killed the Texas Democratic party?
AT LEAST DAN MORALES knew that the mere proclamation he was going to have a press conference was not likely to stop the world in its tracks. The night before and all that morning, some supporters, as well as the attorney general himself, were busy calling around to say that…
Love, War, and LBJ
Two new volumes signal a reawakening of interest in the former president.
The First Protester
How a man named Eldrewey Stearns began the fight for civil rights in Houston.
Scattered Applause
Everyone at the Capitol that morning in late January knew George W. Bush was at a high plateau, and they were there expecting to witness history being made. Popular and successful after two years as governor, openly discussed already as a potential candidate for national office, he was, on this…
By the Numbers
STEPHEN KLINEBERG IS A MAN WHO REVELS IN STATISTICS, finding a pleasure in them so intense it borders on the sensual. We sat at a small round table in his breakfast room as he led me through the arrays of numbers that he has worked each of the last fifteen…
Testy Mail
IN NOVEMBER WE PUBLISHED A RANKING of 3,172 public grade schools in Texas, giving each school one of five grades, from four stars (the best) to no stars (the worst). This article provoked an unusual amount of mail. Some of the letters were barely restrained victory whoops from people connected…
Behind the Lines
The Church on the Hill
Why the big fight between a small town and a small church wound up in the Supreme Court.