Texas History
April 10, 2023
A Writer Revisits His Search for His Grandfather’s Darkest Secrets
Author John Phillip Santos’s 2010 “Tejano elegy” explores family secrets that reveal “the deepest mysteries of being human.”
Story Behind the Story
As Texas Monthly approaches its fiftieth anniversary, in February 2023, each week we will highlight an important story from our past—including true crime tales, riveting political writing, prescient cultural reporting, and more—and offer some perspective on it.
Music
March 7, 2023
The Stars Aligned for This Writer’s Classic Portrait of Leon Bridges
Author Casey Gerald reflects on the creative process behind his August 2021 cover profile of the Fort Worth R&B singer.
Country Notes
February 27, 2023
Author John Graves Was a Literary Godfather to Texas Monthly
The author of Goodbye to a River and two-time National Book Award finalist helped create the magazine’s Country Notes column.
Texas History
February 21, 2023
Pop Quiz: What Inspired the “Tex Education” Quiz?
Long before quizzes littered the internet, TM’s Anne Dingus delighted readers with a hundred-question series that doubled as a “CliffsNotes of Texas history.”
The Texanist
February 15, 2023
The Evolution of the Texanist, According to the Texanist
The magazine’s back-page columnist explains the subtle shifts in his “Fine Advice and Keen Observations,” from 2007 through today.
Books
February 2, 2023
A Novelist and Hollywood Screenwriter Grapples With Her Texan Identity
Attica Locke looks back on her 2012 essay weighing her Houston pride against the fact that “there are things about the state that just don’t work for me.”
Sports
February 1, 2023
Rodeo Fans Should Grow Up Learning About This Legendary Black Rider
A writer looks back on his 2018 cover story on Myrtis Dightman Sr., “the Jackie Robinson of Rodeo,” who broke the sport’s color line.
Music
February 1, 2023
A Culture Writer and Lifelong Selena Fan’s Ultimate Love Letter to the Icon
Cat Cardenas’s 2021 essay made a poignant case about the mistakes Selena never got to make—and how they would have deepened our love for her.
The Stand Up Desk
January 27, 2023
An Author Believed Elon Musk Would Benefit Brownsville. Not Anymore.
National Book Award finalist Domingo Martinez was optimistic about Musk and SpaceX in 2016. Now, he says, “it feels like we sold our souls.”
The Stand Up Desk
January 26, 2023
An Unforgettable Texas Tale of Envy, Embezzlement, and Fruitcake
The writer of an oddball 2016 crime story recalls emailing with an accountant who skimmed $17 million from Corsicana’s Collin Street Bakery.
The Stand Up Desk
January 25, 2023
The True-Crime Classic That Inspired HBO Max’s Forthcoming ‘Love & Death’
In reporting how Candy Montgomery came to murder her lover’s wife, the authors recall trying to capture a “time and place in Texas history.”
The Stand Up Desk
January 12, 2023
Three Decades Later, It’s Still Unclear What Killed Tommy Earl Haynes
The career criminal was found dead after a two-day manhunt in East Texas. A writer recalls reporting on the circumstances of Haynes’s death.
The Stand Up Desk
December 20, 2022
Once Upon a Time, “Southwestern Cuisine” Was a Movement
A writer remembers how a chance conversation at a food festival led to her classic 2014 oral history on Southwestern cuisine.
Music
December 13, 2022
A George Strait Song Was the First Music I Played for My Son. Here’s Why.
The author of a 2014 Texas Monthly profile of King George explains why it was among the few stories in his career that made him cry while writing.
The Stand Up Desk
November 28, 2022
The Writer Behind an Enduring Portrait of West Texas Life
Sterry Butcher on the path that led her to move to Marfa and find God “in the details” while writing about rural Texas.
The Stand Up Desk
November 21, 2022
The Exoneration of Anthony Graves Still Resonates
Pamela Colloff reflects on her 2010 story about the shoddy police work and prosecutorial misconduct that put an innocent man on death row.
Sports
November 16, 2022
Most Sports Figures Were “Paranoid Assholes” to This Writer. Mike Leach was “Fabulous.”
Author S. C. Gwynne calls his 2009 profile of the pirate-obsessed former Texas Tech coach part of the “golden era” of his journalism career.
Film & TV
November 11, 2022
In 1974, “Texas” was the Dirtiest Word in ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’
John Bloom, a.k.a. Joe Bob Briggs, discusses his 2004 opus on the making of the slasher classic and the New York bias against a Texas original.
The Stand Up Desk
October 25, 2022
Skip Hollandsworth Recalls “the Most Moving Story of My Career”
The Texas Monthly writer reflects on the run-down home that led him to write “Still Life,” about John McClamrock, the boy who could not move.
The Stand Up Desk
October 13, 2022
A Writer’s Close Call While Reporting on the Ciudad Juárez Femicides
A man approached Cecilia Ballí and asked, “Are you looking for work?” It shook her—and helped her grasp the danger in early-aughts Juárez.
Being Texan
October 8, 2022
This 1981 Photo Essay Captured Why Being an Aggie Is Not at All Funny
Will Van Overbeek's images, with words by Oscar-winning screenwriter and Texas A&M alum and proud Aggie Al Reinert, were "good bull."
Politics & Policy
October 5, 2022
The Editor’s Suggestion That Led to Kinky Friedman Running for Governor
The musician, author, and columnist needed an idea. Texas Monthly’s then–editor in chief said, “Make something up.” The rest is history.
News
September 29, 2022
How Enron Foretold Our Greedy, Disastrous Present
When Texas Monthly covered Enron's fall in 2001, we wondered if the company was an outlier or the new normal. There's no longer any question.
News & Politics
September 23, 2022
Bearing Witness at Texas’s First Execution by Lethal Injection
In 1982, Dick J. Reavis chronicled the first government-led lethal injection in world history—and the last moments of Charlie Brooks's life.
Music
September 15, 2022
The Poker Game That Inspired an Opus on the Life of DJ Screw
Twenty-two years ago, a Texas Monthly writer heard about a Houston DJ whose slowed-down mixes had become the sound of the city.
Politics & Policy
September 5, 2022
The Ballí Saga on Padre Island Reminds Us That the Little Man Can Win
Cecilia Ballí recalls reporting on her family’s legal victory over the lawyer who swindled the Ballís out of lucrative land rights on Padre Island.
True Crime
August 29, 2022
Out of All the Skip Hollandsworth Crime Stories, ‘Bernie’ Takes the Cake
The writer looks back on his 1998 reporting on an unforgettable murder plot that inspired the 2011 Richard Linklater film ‘Bernie.’
The Stand Up Desk
August 22, 2022
The Texas Barbecue Quest That Started It All
Patricia Sharpe recalls the smoked meats and mileage that went into Texas Monthly’s first-ever Top 50 barbecue list in May 1997.
Film & TV
August 17, 2022
Laura Wilson Photographed Her Sons Like Hollywood Never Could
Her 1996 photo essay captured the joy and vitality of Andrew, Luke, and Owen Wilson's charmed youth in Dallas.
Politics & Policy
August 8, 2022
The Houston Doctor Who Foretold America’s Health Care Woes in 1995
When a family doctor spoke out about insurance companies ruining his practice, few expected his appeal would still resonate 27 years later.
Politics & Policy
August 4, 2022
Almost No One Thought George W. Bush Was the Real Deal. Except Paul Burka.
Even when Bush was a complete political newcomer, Burka could see his potential to change Texas and usher in a yet-to-end Republican dynasty.
Business
August 1, 2022
Telling the Story of the “Bad Boy” of the ’90s Oil and Gas Industry in Texas
Texas Monthly writer Jan Jarboe Russell on profiling the larger-than-life Houston oilman Oscar Wyatt.
Art
July 25, 2022
How Photographer Keith Carter Captured the Rough-hewn Pride of 1980s East Texas
The Beaumont photographer zeroed in on the dignity of East Texas residents in his 1989 Texas Monthly photo essay.
Business
July 8, 2022
How Houston Went From Oil Boomtown to “BoobTown”
Mimi Swartz reflects on her deep dive into Houston’s breast-implant boom and its larger-than-life profiteers.
Politics & Policy
July 5, 2022
You Have Been Sued for Profiling “the Most Hated Woman in America”
Lawrence Wright gives us the story behind his Texas Monthly story on Madalyn Murray O’Hair.
The Stand Up Desk
June 27, 2022
What Stephen Harrigan’s Late-’80s Reporting Prophesied for Galveston Bay
“Your article may be an epitaph,” the then-president of the Houston Audubon Society told the writer.
News & Politics
June 21, 2022
That Time a Texas Monthly Writer Profiled the Baron of Houston
John Davidson’s 1982 article on Enrico di Portanova was everything a high-society profile should be.
Art
June 13, 2022
The Story Behind the Story of One of Houston’s Greatest Art Collections
Texas Monthly writer Michael Ennis’s profile of museum director Walter Hopps took readers inside the Menil Collection’s founding.
Politics & Policy
June 6, 2022
Paul Burka’s Profile of Clinton Manges Exemplifies an Unrivaled Career
No one had a deeper understanding of Texas power—its heroes and villains, its uses and abuses—than Paul.
Texas History
May 31, 2022
How Texas Monthly Chronicled the Eighties Oil Bust Via a Beloved Houston Clothier
Bobby Sakowitz dressed Houston’s most stylish through the seventies and eighties boom years. Then things went bust.
Texas History
May 23, 2022
How a Texas Monthly Editor Got Inside a Billion-Dollar Wall Street Power Play
Joe Nocera’s pitched profile of then-little-known T. Boone Pickens got him unprecedented access to Pickens’s 1982 attempt to take over Cities Service.
Business
May 11, 2022
The Writer Who Chronicled the Rise of a Texas Grocery Institution
Jan Jarboe Russell reflects on an exciting moment in H-E-B’s (and Texas Monthly’s) history.
Texas History
April 28, 2022
A Texas Monthly Editor’s Journey Into the Heart of King Ranch
The legendary cattle empire had been largely closed off from the outside world until the magazine’s founding editor gained access to King Ranch.
Books
April 11, 2022
How a Texas Monthly Writer Wound Up Writing Billy Graham’s Biography
William Martin’s journey from Rice professor to Billy Graham expert began with a simple assignment, one that would alter his life for decades to come.
Energy
April 4, 2022
How a Writer in the Seventies Documented the Essence of Exxon
Former staff writer Nicholas Lemann remembers how Exxon refused to cooperate with his story—and why that made all the difference.
Texas History
March 28, 2022
The Texas Monthly Writer Who Set Out to Find “Real” Texas—in Marfa
Over several years, Richard West spent two months in seven Texas locales. His reporting eventually won the National Magazine Award.
The Stand Up Desk
March 14, 2022
A Texas Monthly Editor Stumbles Into the Sordid World of the Massage Parlor King
Greg Curtis’s first story about Sam Corey was supposed to be a colorful human interest piece, but in some ways it was actually the beginning of a heinous murder.
Texas History
March 4, 2022
How Legendary Sportswriter Gary Cartwright Joined Texas Monthly
He was the magazine’s first big hire and—over the next few decades—delivered some of its most memorable stories.
Texas History
February 28, 2022
The Story Behind the Story: “The Greatest Experience of Your Life”
A popular columnist embeds herself inside the exclusive world of girls’ summer camps.
Texas History
February 16, 2022
The Story Behind the Story: “The Coming of Redneck Hip,” November 1973
A pair of Texas Monthly writers chronicle an emerging scene that would end up defining a city and changing American music forever.