Selected Writings
Articles and Essays
“I wanted consumption to lead to contentment, but like so many things, food and alcohol can quickly outlive their purposes, then cling to our histories in unwashable ways.”
“Inside the Sport of Texas Rock Crawling,” Texas Highways
“The danger is clear. One guy’s buggy ends up on its roof, the vehicle leaking oil or coolant or something brackish-looking all the way down his inverted, seatbelt-suspended body until it pools in the dirt beneath his head.”
“Larry McMurtry’s Last Auction Sale,” Texas Highways
“For many in the collecting world, this story constitutes a sacred event; it’s an event of singularity, one that auctioneers, appraisers, and collectors call “provenance.” It’s the origin story of an object.”
“I Will Conquer You,” Texas Highways
“The journey is one of time travel and sleight of hand—I’ve moved from the conveyor belt of destiny to the conveyor belt of science, and it takes me around the gates of death instead of through them.”
“Hunting for Answers in East Texas,” D Magazine
“He was alive and whole, the blast just missing his face, but my mind was already at the coroner’s in Longview. Mentally, I was tailing the hearse back to Dallas.”
“That Time I Joined a Rugby Team,” D Magazine
“If you wake up one day and decide you have a burning desire to play rugby for one of the biggest clubs in the country, it’s shockingly easy.”
“Nearly 60 Years After His Death, The Annual JFK Assassination Conference Is Still Going Strong,” Inside Hook
“And while I can see the connections being made, it begins to feel like everything is a conspiracy, that if I spent my days pouring over the shadows in every photograph or the mathematics involved in blowing things apart, I would begin to see a larger plan at work, something definitely worth a lifetime of anxiety.”
“America’s Iconic Inns Are Used To Weathering Storms. But COVID-19 Is Different,” Inside Hook
“‘It’s like a ghost town. And the rumors are rampant. You shouldn’t even talk to people because the virus is in the air. And it can be transferred from just talking to somebody even five feet or six feet away. That was crazy. That’s not true. You know what, I don’t know what’s true.’”
“Dead People’s Junk,” Narratively
“But that’s how a lot of people act at estate sales. They come looking for bargains and freebees, and if they can’t find any they just wander around the house to look at the disorganized remnants of a life extinguished.”
“Hope and heartbreak: how Texas almost made history,” Huck Magazine
“When George arrived to vote at Texas’s Alex Sanger Elementary School yesterday, he arrived in a car loaded with guns.”
“The Last Ride of Bonnie and Clyde,” Roads and Kingdoms
“At the back of the museum is a replica of the death car, though it has fake bullet holes and stands in as a poor substitute. A single-toilet-bathroom is directly next to it. I can’t help but wonder how this place stacks up to the other shrines of the world.”
“80 Years Later, Retracing the Real Life of Bonnie and Clyde,” Atlas Obscura
“Brandishing high-powered machine guns and driving the newly invented Ford V-8s, Bonnie and Clyde are mythologized as Robin Hoods for the poor and destitute who had been failed by the American political and financial institutions.”