Katy Vine joined the editorial department of Texas Monthly in 1997 and became a staff writer in 2002. As a general assignment reporter, she has written dozens of features on a range of topics, including rocket scientist Franklin Chang Díaz, hip-hop legend Bun B, barbecue pitmasters, cult leader Warren Jeffs, refugees in Amarillo, the moon landing, a three-person family circus, chess prodigies, a woman who kidnapped the Kilgore Rangerettes director and her daughter, an accountant who embezzled $17 million from a fruitcake company, and a con man who crashed cars, yachts, and planes for insurance money. Her stories have been anthologized in Best American Sports Writing and Best Food Writing. Her feature story about a West Texas sting operation was the inspiration for the 2012 television series The Client List.
Sandy Jenkins was a quiet accountant at the Collin Street Bakery who felt overlooked and dreamed of living the good life. He found it (for a while) by embezzling nearly $17 million from the famed fruitcake maker.
John Mueller was the heir to one of the great Texas barbecue dynasties. Aaron Franklin was an unknown kid from College Station who worked his counter. John had it all and then threw it all away. Aaron came out of nowhere to create the state’s most coveted brisket. Then John
Brandon and Denise were not like other people. They were smarter, more introverted. They adored computers, playing games online at three in the morning with people in Finland. When they and other hard-core techies moved to Walden, a Houston apartment complex with the fastest residential Internet connection in the world,
The child custody battle between the State of Texas and a fundamentalist Mormon sect prompted many people to wonder how 437 kids could have been ripped away from their parents. When the criminal trials of a dozen sect members got under way this month, the question became, Was it really
When Warren Jeffs fired his attorneys and decided to represent himself in his sexual assault trial, many predicted, accurately, that he would fail miserably. Few realized just what a wild show he would put on.
On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made history as the first humans to set foot on the surface of the moon. Forty years later, the researchers, astronauts, engineers, scientists, and NASA officials who made the voyage possible remember the day the Eagle landed.
Before sunrise, journalists and eager onlookers gathered at the gates of the Capitol grounds, awaiting the start of the attorney general's historic impeachment trial.
. . . When it comes to producing renewable energy, winning golf tournaments, banning books, and closing rural hospitals. Why is Texas so darn great . . . and so darn awful?
A longtime reporter makes some big decisions about what to listen to when you’re heading to Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Austin, Fort Worth, or the Big Bend region.
For many legendary musicians, there was no finer guitar than one made by San Antonio’s Guadalupe Acosta and his sons. Their descendants are restoring their legacy.
Celebrities, influencers, and high-end shoppers are among the throngs that descend upon the tiny town’s biannual antiques fair, which has flourished—even during a pandemic.
He’s made critics gush with his art-house dramas and howl with his stoner comedies. But for the director of ‘Halloween Ends,’ it’s all about experimentation.
As clinics across the state offer ketamine therapy for depression, a bill would fund further studies on MDMA use and psilocybin for PTSD treatment of vets.
For nearly a quarter century, this bohemian venue and ”social sculpture” has been a gathering place for poets, performance artists, and even a rooster or two.
