Culture
‘Let the Lord Sort Them’ Explores the Rise, Fall, and Lingering Trauma of the Death Penalty in Texas
In his new book, journalist Maurice Chammah ties Texas' embrace of capital punishment to the state's frontier mythos.
From the January/February 2021 issue. Dalton Coble didn’t know his grandfather particularly well, but stories of Billie Wayne Coble have cast a shadow over h...Read More
‘Fugitive Dreams’ Tells a Timeless Tale for Right Now
Austin-based director Jason Neulander and two Texas actors bring a play about homelessness, police violence, and illness to the screen.
John, a nervous chatterbox with a child’s innocence, retches under a tree on the side of the road. “Dust in the lungs,” he says. His companion, the downhe...Read More
‘Chicano Squad’ Provides New Perspectives on Police Brutality and Unsolved Murders
Two native Texans teamed up to produce a just-released podcast that tells the story of an innovative group of Houston homicide detectives.
In 1977, a handsome young veteran named Jose Campos Torres was arrested at a Houston cantina after getting into a fight. Police hauled him, still drunk and angr...Read More
A Weird End for a Weird Year: Our Eight Favorite Strange Texas Stories of 2020
A wild horse chase, an alligator with a big appetite, and a cloned cat made this year a little stranger—in a good way.
As we near the end of 2020, we can only hope this cursed year has no more curve balls to throw our way. After all, we’ve weathered a global pandemic that has ...Read More
Loon Star: The Year in Cartoons
A diary of this hell year via the inimitable Ben Sargent.
What a year, folks. One for the books. To remember everything that’s happened, we’ve put together a compilation of Ben Sargent’s Loon Star Sta...Read More
Poet Claudia Delfina Cardona on Her Debut Poetry Chapbook
Born and raised in San Antonio, this poet and editor writes to and for other Texans.
San Antonio poet Claudia Delfina Cardona can’t help but write about home. In What Remains, Cardona’s new chapbook, the chambers of her heart look like café...Read More
A New Book Celebrates the Work of Architect John S. Chase
Chase was the state’s first licensed Black architect and the first Black person to receive a master’s degree from the University of Texas.
John S. Chase is the Texas architect you wish you knew about—or perhaps should have already heard of. Inspired by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright with his own ...Read More
Selena’s Life and Legacy in Corpus Christi
Tejano history and women’s history professor Cynthia E. Orozco spoke to the Observer about Selena’s life as a new series streams on Netflix.
Few people have left as indelible a mark on Texas—and the world—as musician Selena Quintanilla. Cynthia E. Orozco, a professor of history at Eastern New Mex...Read More
The Flâneur of Downtown Dallas
Zac Crain has spent four years getting to know the nooks and crannies of the Big D, which he documents in his new book, A Pedestrian’s Recent History of Dallas.
Within Texas circles, Dallas gets a bad rap. It is, some say, not as weird as Austin, as sophisticated as Houston, as beautiful as San Antonio, as historic as E...Read More