Mimi Swartz

Sep 17, 2015 — By Mimi Swartz

How did smog-breathing, gridlock-prone Houston become the newest natural wonder of the urban world?

May 13, 2015 — By Mimi Swartz

Mimi Swartz cross-examines the Court of Criminal Appeals’ unprecedented sanctions against a death penalty lawyer.

May 8, 2015 — By Mimi Swartz

For the first time in its history, Blue Bell is in a right sticky mess.

Apr 10, 2015 — By Mimi Swartz

Mimi Swartz wonders why, in this day and age, there are so few Hispanics serving on the boards of Texas nonprofits.

Mar 23, 2015 — By Texas Monthly and Mimi Swartz

The story of Texas can be reduced to one sentence: somebody has something somebody else wants and will put up a fight to get. In the beginning, these fights were over land. The Spanish explorers came here in the 1500’s; ignoring native peoples, they claimed a vast region that…

Feb 12, 2015 — By Mimi Swartz

Mimi Swartz on what Houston’s fractious mayoral race says about the city.

May 19, 2014 — By Mimi Swartz

Bryan Cranston’s portrayal of LBJ was just another sad caricature of what the world thinks a Texan ought to act like.

Apr 11, 2014 — By Mimi Swartz

Mimi Swartz on how the rise of our cities will lead to a new kind of government.

Mar 28, 2014 — By Mimi Swartz

Rachel Bonyton's film "Big Men" follows Dallas oilman Jim Musselman as he contracts with the government of Ghana to find and develop the first oil field in that country.

Mar 12, 2014 — By Mimi Swartz

First Bettina Siegel went after the beef industry. Now she’s tackling the Chinese government.

Feb 11, 2014 — By Mimi Swartz

Woodland Heights may not be the fanciest neighborhood in Houston, or the quietest, or the coolest (and it can be a little full of itself), but it’s mine.

Jan 14, 2014 — By Mimi Swartz

If you have kids, being a caregiver to an elderly parent may feel a bit familiar.

Dec 11, 2013 — By Texas Monthly and Mimi Swartz

Is Charlotte Allen Houston's true founder?

Dec 6, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

The lessons of a family heirloom.

Dec 6, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

Houston put a man on the moon and performed the first artificial heart transplant. So why can’t it save the Eighth Wonder of the World?

Nov 15, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

Bev Kearney, UT's former celebrated track-and-field coach, filed suit against the university yesterday. The smart thing to do would be to make the whole thing go away—though it might benefit the larger world of college athletics to have the whole sordid mess played out in public.

Sep 17, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

Last year, UT forced prominent track-and-field coach Bev Kearney to resign because of her affair with a student. Now she’s fighting back, with a lawsuit that opens a window onto the world of high-stakes collegiate athletics—a window that many people would just as soon keep closed.

May 13, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

As my son graduates from college, I’m learning to say goodbye to him—again.

Feb 25, 2013 — By Texas Monthly and Mimi Swartz

The estate sale from the residence of the late Mildred Yount Manion II, an heiress from an "Important Texas Oil Family," proved too hard to resist.

Jan 24, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

I used to think my hometown was a sleepy, slow-moving place where nothing much would ever happen. But forty years after I left, the city is a bustling, economically vibrant, progressive place I hardly recognize—in a good way.

Jan 21, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

Houston and that brilliant artist of light James Turrell have proved to be an enduring couple, what with the California native’s inspiring work at the Live Oak Friends Meeting house and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. But the Skyspace installation Turrell created to honor Rice University’s centennial is perhaps…

Jan 21, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

For too many veterans, the emotional scars of war go untreated. An innovative group of Harris County politicians, judges, attorneys, and health care workers—most of whom are veterans themselves—is aiming to fix that.

Jan 21, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

The author of Private Empire: ExxonMobile and American Power answers the question: In terms of difficulty, how would you compare reporting on Exxon with the reporting you did for your previous book, The Bin Ladens?

Jan 21, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

In 1996 a powerful South Texas ranching clan accused ExxonMobil of sabotaging wells on the family’s property. Thirteen years, millions of dollars in legal fees, and one state Supreme Court opinion later, the biggest oil field feud of its time is still raging.

Jan 21, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

Over the past fifteen years, John Friend turned his Woodlands–based Anusara style of yoga into an internationally popular brand. Then, in the space of a few weeks, it became hopelessly twisted amid a wild series of accusations of sexual and financial improprieties.

Jan 21, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

The New Yorker writer talks about his latest book, Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power.

Jan 21, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

Terry Grier is the hard-charging, reform-minded, optimistic superintendent of the largest school district in the state. He’s also the most divisive, embattled, and despised man in Houston. Did it have to be this way?

Jan 21, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

For more than seven decades, Camp Mystic has been one of the prettiest, happiest, and most exclusive destinations in Texas. But after a bitter, multimillion-dollar legal battle, the very thing that the owners cherished—family—may be the force that tears the camp apart for good.

Jan 21, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

There are prettier women in Hollywood. There are more-talented actresses on TV and in the movies. So how to explain the charmed, celebrated existence that is la vida Longoria?

Jan 20, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

Mickey Rosmarin on selling high-end women's fashion.

Jan 20, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

The nouvelle stars of Houston society are none other than Becca Cason and Holly Moore, the founders of the hippest, most with-it PR machine in the city.

Jan 20, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

During his lifetime, he captivated Houston with his courtroom brilliance, outsized ambition, and high-dollar lifestyle. But in the year since John O’Quinn’s tragic death, a bitter estate battle has revealed who he really was.

Jan 20, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

In the year since my mother died, I’ve learned a lot of things—like how to spend time with my dad.

Jan 20, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

Is Survivor’s Colby Donaldson for real? Over lunch, the last old-fashioned Texas man talks about why he threw the game and what he’ll do next.

Jan 20, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

The BP oil spill hit the small world of Houston’s oil and gas business hard. So now that the well is plugged, who’s up and who’s down?

Jan 20, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

The lessons of the eighties boom have been internalized by today’s energy entrepreneurs, who seem nothing like their risk-loving forebears. They’re happy playing it safe, which is why their preferred commodity is gas, not oil.

Jan 20, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

In the post-Washington game, former attorney general Alberto Gonzales has fared worse than any other member of the Bush administration. Why?

Jan 20, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

Increasingly so. Surprise, surprise.

Jan 20, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

Why does a rich Houston investment banker spend his days traveling the globe, preaching to the uninformed and indifferent that the world’s supply of crude oil is in steep decline and the end of life as we know it is very, very near? Maybe because it is.

Jan 20, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

The most formidable candidate in the race for Houston’s next mayor may be the outgoing chief himself.

Jan 20, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz and Jake Silverstein

They may disagree on just about everything, but Rick Perry and Bill White have one thing in common: a Texas childhood.

Jan 20, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

Brent Coon’s back to take on BP.

Jan 20, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

After James and Linda Rowe were killed in a grisly refinery explosion in Texas City in 2005, their wild-child daughter could have taken a modest settlement and started to rebuild her life in a small Louisiana border town. Instead, she chose to fight—and brought a multibillion-dollar oil company to its knees.

Jan 20, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

Is she a “saccharine phony”? A closet liberal? A foot soldier—or a rebel—in the culture wars? The truth about Laura Bush is that her ambiguity makes her a model first lady: a blank screen upon which the public can project its own ideas about womanhood.

Jan 20, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

Sixteen years after Roe v. Wade, all the bitterness and horror of the abortion fight can be found at a single site in Dallas.

Jan 20, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

Clyde Wilson is more than a private investigator. He’s the historian of Houston’s dark side—and that makes him the most dangerous man in town.

Jan 20, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

Inside the fantastic rise and catastrophic fall of Sir Allen Stanford—that high-flying egomaniac with the offshore bank, gold helicopter, Caribbean island, and knack for disposing of other people’s money.

Jan 20, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

If the crash that followed the boom hasn’t exactly been our fault, the result has been that same sad sense that maybe we’ll never have fun again.

Jan 20, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

Trade secrets and true tales from Lynn Wyatt, she of the famously fabulous parties, glamorous couture gowns, rich and entertaining pals (e.g., Liza Minnelli, Andy Warhol), and legendary whiskey laugh.

Jan 20, 2013 — By Mimi Swartz

I had no clue about the amount of magic Texas held. Texas had a persona all its own, and I was proud to be a little smidgen part of it.