Excerpt: How to Close a Camp
Detention was sold as both a law-and-order necessity and an economic opportunity, welding together the racist politics of the drug war with the rise of private prisons.
Books
Black Bookstore Owners, Government Spies, and Murder
Authors bring new insights to complex stories in nonfiction featured at the 2025 Texas Book Festival.
Editor’s Letter: Introducing Our November/December 2025 Issue
A note from the editor-in-chief
Life in the Time of Hurricanes
So late in the season, this was likely a bad one, if it came this way...
The Arc Doesn’t Bend Itself
A new memoir traces the evolution of a trailblazing civil rights group in Texas.
‘The Search Committee’ Is a Subtle Rebuke of the Border Literary Canon
José Skinner’s fast-paced satire delivers sharp insights gleaned from years lived in Mexico and the Rio Grande Valley.
Penned Poetry: A Formerly Incarcerated Activist’s Turn to Verse
Longtime advocate Jorge Antonio Renaud lyricizes the grit of prison life in his first published collection of poems, The Restlessness of Bound Wrists.
The History of Eugenics in Texas Isn’t What You Think
A new book unearths a chapter of the state’s story when anti-intellectual fundamentalism was put to good ends.
Art Is Immortality
Suddenly, Analina dips her head. Grief seems on the verge of overwhelming her—until something visibly intervenes…
The Sordid, Unscientific Story Behind Lethal Injection
A new book by a national expert explores the failures of the United States’ favored execution method.