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Skip Hollandsworth

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Skip Hollandsworth is a staff writer at Texas Monthly specializing in longform narratives. He grew up in Wichita Falls, attended TCU in Fort Worth, and after graduation worked as a reporter and columnist for newspapers in Dallas. He also worked as a television producer and documentary filmmaker.

In 1989, Hollandsworth joined Texas Monthly, where he has received several journalism awards, including a National Headliner Award, the national John Hancock Award for excellence in business and financial journalism, the City and Regional Magazine Association 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 comic crime movie Bernie, which Hollandsworth cowrote with director Richard Linklater, was released in May 2012. It’s based on Hollandsworth’s 1998 story “Midnight in the Garden of East Texas.” His book, The Midnight Assassin, a true-crime historical thriller, was published in April 2016 and became a New York Times best-seller.

304 Articles

Web Exclusive|
October 31, 2007

Me and Tommy Lee

No Country for Old Men is Tommy Lee Jones’s new movie. I don’t think he’ll be granting me an interview anytime soon.

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True Crime|
July 1, 2007

Angel of Death

What was it, exactly, that caused Vickie Dawn Jackson, a sweet, soft-spoken nurse at Nocona General Hospital, to become one of the most prolific serial killers in Texas history?

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Being Texan|
April 1, 2007

The Gang’s All Here

When the rough-and-tumble bikers known as the Bandidos gathered in San Antonio for the funeral of one of their beloved members, they swore a lot, drank a lot, defended themselves against the police and the public’s misperceptions, and—amazingly—let a reporter observe the whole fascinating scene.

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True Crime|
December 1, 2006

“You Don’t Want to Know What We Do After Dark”

The young, tattooed men who are members of the Southwest Cholos, La Primera, La Tercera Crips, Somos Pocos Pero Locos, Mara Salvatrucha, and other Houston gangs are vicious career criminals who regularly rob innocent people in some of the city’s most dangerous neighborhoods. They steal cars and break into businesses.

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True Crime|
April 30, 2006

The Last Rustler

If he was asked what he did for a living, Roddy Dean Pippin would smile and say something about the cattle business. But he didn’t exactly buy and sell cows. He stole them. And right up until he was caught, he was as good as any such thief had ever

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Feature|
March 1, 2006

Casualty Of War

A real-life G.I. Joe, Master Sergeant James Coons hardly seemed like a candidate for post-traumatic stress disorder. But when his demons got the best of him, there was nothing anyone could do—not that anyone really tried.

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Reporter|
December 1, 2005

Y’all Come Back

Homecoming in the town of Spur means football, the crowning of a queen, parades, pep rallies, barbecue, a bonfire, and so much more.

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Feature|
June 30, 2005

Angie Barrett Does Not Use Butt Cream

She shares that curious fact with you for posterior’s— er, posterity’s sake. What you really need to know about the shopgirl turned shoplifter is that her rehabilitation is continuing apace atop Dallas’ social heap. And thanks to a new reality show about her life, there’s no end in sight.

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Feature|
August 31, 2004

Wrecked

The car crash that killed four teenage girls in Tatum last September is an East Texas version of a Greek tragedy, one that has forced the tiny town's residents to address some of life's most agonizing questions: When the worst things happen—when the most heartbreaking events come into your life

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True Crime|
February 1, 2004

Family Man

To his suburban Dallas neighbors, Todd Becker was a doting husband and devoted father. They had no clue that he led a secret, lucrative life as a safecracker.

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Film & TV|
August 31, 2003

Love Thy Self-Help

America's notoriously needy readers certainly do—and for the robust health of this publishing genre, they have Dallas in general and Phil McGraw's agent in particular to thank.

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Reporter|
March 1, 2003

Facing the Music

Michael Morales' guilty plea doesn't answer the most interesting question about his attempted extortion of Tony Sanchez: Who else knew about his cockamamy plot, and when did they know it?

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The Culture|
February 1, 2003

What Does Kay Want?

Good question, and everyone seems to have an answer: To be respected for her accomplishments as a U.S. senator. To help lead the GOP after its Election Day triumph. To be a mom, finally, in her late fifties. To come back home and run for governor—maybe. But, please, no psychobabble.

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Headshot of Clara Harris.
True Crime|
November 1, 2002

Suburban Madness

Why would a devoted wife deliberately run over her beloved husband three times? It’s quite simple, really. He was having an affair with a woman accused by her allegedly pill-popping ex-husband of carrying on a lesbian relationship with her best friend, whose ex-husband has been indicted for an illegal wiretapping

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Travel & Outdoors|
September 30, 2002

The Yucatan

AS MUCH AS I LIKE to think of myself as a grand adventurer, an explorer of all things exotic, I have to admit that when it came time for my Mexican vacation, I headed straight for a beach resort. I’m not talking about a tiny hotel on a remote beach

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Darlene Routier maintaining her innocence behind shatterproof glass at the Mountain View Unit in Gatesville.
True Crime|
June 30, 2002

Maybe Darlie Didn’t Do It

Darlie Routier has been on death row for five years now, always insisting that she didn't kill her sons Devon and Damon. And as her lawyers prepare to head into court yet again, new information about her case raises the possibility that she may have been telling the truth all

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Music|
May 31, 2002

With Envy

Pat Green’s fans—and they are legion—love his songs about the joys of Luckenbach and Lone Star beer. His critics—also legion—think his lyrics are trite. But no matter how you feel about him, there’s no denying that he’s the hottest country music act in Texas. And that he has made the

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hit man
True Crime|
September 30, 2001

Hit Man

Psst! Looking to have somebody murdered? You might want to call Gary Johnson, the number one hired killer in Houston. Then again you might not. You see he works for the cops.

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Texana|
August 31, 2001

Jessica McClure

On October 14, 1987, an eighteen-month-old toddler named Jessica McClure fell 22 feet into an abandoned Midland water well that was only eight inches in diameter. For the next three days, rescuers frantically dug a tunnel to reach her while the little girl sang nursery rhymes to herself, called

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The Culture|
August 31, 2001

Doris Angleton

It was the great Houston murder mystery of the nineties. Who shot 46-year-old Doris Angleton, the beautiful, ebullient River Oaks mother of two young daughters and the wife of Robert Angleton, Houston’s top bookmaker? When Doris was found in her home in 1997—she had been shot thirteen times—their friends speculated

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Music|
April 30, 2001

Daddy’s Little Girl

LeAnn Rimes was a marshmallow-cheeked thirteen-year-old when she made it big. Now, five years later, she is locked in bitter legal battles with both her estranged father and her Nashville record company, and her life and career are collapsing around her. Can America's country princess get back on track?

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Bill Wittliff at his west Austin home with his dog, Ocho.
Feature|
February 1, 2001

The Talented Mr. Wittliff

Can a savvy Hollywood dealmaker also be as down-home and unassuming as an old shoe? He can if he's Austin's Bill Wittliff, an award-winning screenwriter, an accomplished photographer, a collector with a passion for the past—in short, the nicest Renaissance man you'll ever meet.

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True Crime|
December 1, 2000

Child of a Lesser God

It was a modern-day horror story: a little girl hidden away in rat-infested squalor for most of her life. When the authorities took her away from her mother and grandmother, the nine-year-old had never been to school or played outside.

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Web Exclusive|
September 30, 2000

The War of the Sarofims

Senior editor Skip Hollandsworth tells the story behind this month's cover story, "Can't Buy Me Love." How he got his sources to talk, what he did when they wouldn't, and other secrets of his reporting.

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Feature|
September 30, 2000

Can’t Buy Me Love

Take one of the nation's wealthiest men, the enigmatic, Egyptian-born Fayez Sarofim. Add his socialite first wife and her brassy successor. Stir in River Oaks mansions and greedy lawyers, boatloads of money and oceans of booze. Mix it all together and what do you get? A hell of a mess

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Profile|
August 31, 2000

Change of Routine

Sixteen years after her Olympic triumph, Mary Lou Retton talks about her family, her career, and what she really thought of Bela Karolyi.

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True Crime|
June 30, 2000

Capital Murder

In a year-long spree that began in late 1884, Texas’ first serial killer butchered seven women and one man in Austin. More than a century later questions about his identity and his motive remain unanswered.

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True Crime|
March 1, 2000

Blood Will Sell

The richest man ever tried for murder has found the Lord, along with a new career peddling hand cream. Are you buying the latest incarnation of Cullen Davis?

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Sports|
December 1, 1999

Athlete of the Century—Carl Lewis

“When it comes to individual athletic superiority, few people in the world can touch long, lean, impossibly fast Carl Lewis, who came to Texas in 1979, qualified for the Olympics in 1980, and dominated his sport—the world of sports, actually—for the next sixteen years.”

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