
“I’m definitely more paranoid wherever I go. I definitely watch my back more and pay attention to what’s going on around me.”
Before joining the Texas Monthly staff, in 1989, executive editor Skip Hollandsworth worked as a reporter and columnist in Dallas and as a television producer and documentary filmmaker. During his tenure with the magazine, he has received several journalism awards, including a National Headliners Award, the national John Hancock Award for Excellence in Business and Financial Journalism, the City and Regional Magazine gold award for feature writing, and the Texas Institute of Letters O. Henry Award for magazine writing.
He has been a finalist four times for a National Magazine Award, the magazine industry’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize, and in 2010 he won the National Magazine Award in feature writing for “Still Life,” his story about a young man who, after suffering a crippling football injury in high school, spent the next 33 years in his bedroom, unable to move. The 2011 movie Bernie, which Hollandsworth co-wrote with Richard Linklater, is based on his January 1998 story, “Midnight in the Garden of East Texas.”
His true crime history, The Midnight Assassin, about a series of murders that took place in Austin in 1885, is being published in April 2016 by Henry Holt and Co.
Nov 17, 2020 — By Skip Hollandsworth
“I’m definitely more paranoid wherever I go. I definitely watch my back more and pay attention to what’s going on around me.”
Nov 10, 2020 — By Skip Hollandsworth
“The people of the town are calling us and saying, ‘Do we have a monster that lives in our community?’ I wish I could give them solace.”
Nov 3, 2020 — By Skip Hollandsworth
“I'm like, ‘What in the heck is that?’ So, I walk around some shrubs, and as I get closer, I can see that it kind of looks like bone.”
Oct 27, 2020 — By Skip Hollandsworth
“It's kind of strange that your investigator calls this search, and, lo and behold, right after he starts the search, a cellphone is found.”
Oct 20, 2020 — By Skip Hollandsworth
“I'm sitting there thinking, ‘Oh God, I'm so scared right now.’ I couldn't convince them. And so I just let them hammer me.”
Oct 13, 2020 — By Skip Hollandsworth
“Makes you want to go to the church, get on your knees, and say a few words, right?”
Oct 6, 2020 — By Skip Hollandsworth
“My gut tells me he hasn't left Hemphill County. I think he's here somewhere, and I don't know if he intends to come out in the next day or two.”
Sep 29, 2020 — By Skip Hollandsworth
In 2016 a popular teenager disappeared in the tiny Panhandle community of Canadian. Two years later, his remains were discovered beneath a tree outside of town. But to this day, no arrests have been made, and it seems that nearly everyone involved in the case has fallen under suspicion.
Dec 24, 2019 — By Skip Hollandsworth
When her former student was found wandering the streets a decade after she’d last seen him, Michell Girard immediately agreed to take him in. Then she decided to do far more, including give him the Christmas he’d never had.
Dec 18, 2019 — By Skip Hollandsworth
Brenda thought she and Ricky would be together forever, until he left her. Kendra thought she and Ricky would be together forever. Then Brenda took matters into her own hands. Inside the case of jealousy, spying, and murder that shook Uptown Dallas.
Nov 20, 2019 — By Michael Hall, Skip Hollandsworth, Andy Langer, Emily McCullar, Katy Vine and Lauren Smith Ford
The stories, the traditions, and the deeper meanings of the boots in their lives.
Sep 18, 2019 — By Skip Hollandsworth
Last September, law enforcement officers were confounded by a murderer targeting prostitutes along the border. As the investigation intensified, they discovered that the killer had been hiding in plain sight.
Sep 12, 2019 — By Skip Hollandsworth
In his plainspoken, hilariously vivid vernacular, the Texas oilman constantly spun tales about good times and bad.
Sep 6, 2019 — By Skip Hollandsworth
He renounced his violent San Antonio childhood during 28 years behind bars. A new life and new love awaited him outside the prison gates.
Jun 25, 2019 — By Al Reinert and Skip Hollandsworth
America finds inspiration and salvation on the moon—and then keeps going.
Jun 21, 2019 — By Skip Hollandsworth
Peppard was the last of his breed, covering with panache the feuds and foibles of his city’s bold-faced names.
Apr 24, 2019 — By Skip Hollandsworth
Sabika Sheikh, a Muslim exchange student from Pakistan with dreams of changing the world, struck up an unlikely friendship with an evangelical Christian girl. The two became inseparable—until the day a fellow student opened fire.
Apr 5, 2019 — By Skip Hollandsworth
New insights about Redrick “Red” Batiste emerge after his accomplices are found guilty.
Dec 27, 2018 — By Skip Hollandsworth
The brother of a young cowboy lost in a 2017 Panhandle fire helped his team to a stunning victory.
Nov 18, 2018 — By Skip Hollandsworth
The president of Dallas’s Paul Quinn College serves the underserved.
Nov 12, 2018 — By Skip Hollandsworth
The wildly popular Houston author and speaker is staring down the ”sin” and ”ungodliness” in her own denomination.
Sep 14, 2018 — By Skip Hollandsworth
Now 99 years old, the legendary coach of the Wayland Baptist Flying Queens has his official place in the Naismith Hall of Fame.
Aug 30, 2018 — By Skip Hollandsworth
Notes from the Dallas courtroom where, against the odds, police officer Roy Oliver was convicted of murder after shooting the 15-year-old black boy.
Aug 23, 2018 — By Skip Hollandsworth
Texas leads the country in hot-car deaths of children. Was Michael Thedford a horrible father, or did he make a mistake any parent could make?
Jul 20, 2018 — By Skip Hollandsworth
Jeff Henry often said that his goal in life was to make customers of his family’s legendary water parks happy—“to put a smile on their faces, to give them a thrill or two.” It was a beautiful vision. Until it went horribly wrong.
May 19, 2018 — By Skip Hollandsworth
Earlier this spring, Jeff Pike, the head of the infamous Texas-based Bandidos motorcycle club, went on trial in federal court for racketeering. Prosecutors called him a ruthless killer, the man behind one of the deadliest biker shootouts in American history at the Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco. Pike, however, said he was just a good family man. On Thursday, jurors announced their verdict.
May 11, 2018 — By Skip Hollandsworth
Originally sentenced to twenty years, the Houston dentist who ran over her cheating husband has been paroled.
Apr 18, 2018 — By Skip Hollandsworth
Beginning in 2015, Houston was plagued by a series of brutal armored car robberies that bewildered FBI agents for nearly two years. To finally bring down the unassuming mastermind behind it all, the agents had to stage an elaborate trap—and catch him in the act.
Mar 21, 2018 — By Skip Hollandsworth
The Midnight Assassin, who terrorized Austin 138 years ago, also targeted minorities first.
Feb 21, 2018 — By Skip Hollandsworth
The country music provocateur and East Texas native talks growing up, ”getting weird” onstage, and taking risks with her new album.
Sep 5, 2017 — By Skip Hollandsworth
And yes, it has to do with global warming.
Aug 3, 2017 — By Skip Hollandsworth
What Skip Hollandsworth learned writing this month’s cover story.
Apr 19, 2017 — By Skip Hollandsworth
A struggling community forges a life for itself against the odds.
Mar 22, 2017 — By Skip Hollandsworth
Two years after a deadly Waco shoot-out, the local district attorney is trying to take down the Bandidos and Cossacks biker clubs. It won’t be easy.
Mar 20, 2017 — By Skip Hollandsworth
He’s a billionaire. He says whatever is on his mind. He thinks he can run the country. No, it’s not Trump we’re talking about. Could Mark Cuban be our next president?
Dec 21, 2016 — By Skip Hollandsworth
Edwin Debrow committed murder at age 12. Now 37, he remains behind bars. When should a child criminal be given a second chance?
Aug 18, 2016 — By Skip Hollandsworth
On the heels of tragedy, community policing in Dallas remains as valuable as ever.
Jun 22, 2016 — By Skip Hollandsworth
Texas may have inspired Larry McMurtry to become a writer, but there is no writer who has inspired an understanding of Texas quite like Larry McMurtry. At age eighty, our most iconic author still has work to do.
May 27, 2016 — By Skip Hollandsworth
Two decades after killing Marjorie Nugent, Bernie Tiede was sentenced this spring for her murder—again. So what do we make of him now?
Apr 4, 2016 — By Skip Hollandsworth
An exclusive excerpt from The Midnight Assassin: Panic, Scandal, and the Hunt for America's First Serial Killer reveals a forgotten time in Austin history, when a series of brutal, unsolved slayings terrified officials and left them wondering if a madman was on the loose.
Jan 27, 2016 — By Skip Hollandsworth
The descendants of Richard and Henrietta King do hereby invite you into the King Ranch with these exclusive photographs of the one-hundred-year-old Main House.
Sep 30, 2015 — By Skip Hollandsworth
The district attorney of Dallas County is making headlines for all the wrong reasons. What happened?
Sep 17, 2015 — By Skip Hollandsworth
Behind the lens with photographer Laura Wilson.
Aug 13, 2015 — By Skip Hollandsworth
He’s the best defensive player in the NFL but writes his own Christmas cards. He has thousands of fans who’d love to party, but he goes to bed at seven-thirty. He could be the league’s next MVP but enjoys buying his own groceries. Is Houston’s J. J. Watt for real?
Jun 16, 2015 — By Skip Hollandsworth
After the deadly shoot-out in Waco, what do the Bandidos want? To be left alone.
Mar 23, 2015 — By Texas Monthly and Skip Hollandsworth
When I was a teenager growing up in Wichita Falls, which is regularly hailed as one of the hottest cities in the state (and sometimes the country), I spent my summers smelling like roadkill. The moment I stepped outside my house, sweat began sliding like syrup down my back.
Feb 12, 2015 — By Skip Hollandsworth
Last summer, Theresa Roemer’s three-story closet made her the country’s most famous social climber. But she was only getting started.
Dec 15, 2014 — By Skip Hollandsworth
Skip Hollandsworth drills into the surprising (and not so surprising) fortunes of Denton’s anti-fracking ballot measure.
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