Dan Goodgame

This month’s cover story, an oral history, explores the enduring impact of the Livestrong movement, once promoted by professional cyclist and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong to lend encouragement and support to others suffering from the dread disease. For the writer of our story, the topic hit close to home. Senior editor Emily McCullar was ten years old when she lost her mother to breast cancer, in 1996, eight years before Livestrong was born. Emily says, “My mother’s illness has very much info…

Over the past several months, one publication after another has announced significant layoffs: Business Insider, the Los Angeles Times, National Geographic, the New Yorker, Sports Illustrated, the Texas Tribune, the Washington Post, and many others. Among the few journalistic organizations still growing in readers, listeners, and viewers, revenue, and editorial staff are the New York Times—and Texas Monthly. That distinction wouldn’t be possible without the diligence and creativity of TM’s ed…

Some of Texas Monthly’s most discerning readers regularly ask me, “When will y’all publish your next article by Sean O’Neal?” They look forward to Sean’s authoritative, witty takes on movies, TV, and music—and his occasional forays into the performative aspects of politics. (His first piece for us, in 2019, delved into the playlists at campaign rallies for Julián Castro and Beto O’Rourke.) Born and reared in Arlington, between Dallas and Fort Worth, Sean knows the state well. And his years spent…

Most journalists develop a specialty or two, accumulating knowledge of particular topics through their reporting and cultivating of expert sources. At Texas Monthly, for instance, executive editor Mike Hall, a law school dropout and rock-and-roll singer and guitarist who plays weekend gigs in Austin, writes often about both criminal justice and music. Executive editor Courtney Bond enthusiastically covers food and drink as well as Texas travel. But few writers anywhere display the range of senio…

When Texas Monthly bought the beloved Texas Country Reporter TV series two years ago, my colleagues and I were excited and also worried. We knew the popularity of the show, which tells engaging stories about folks along the back roads of Texas, was based in large part on the appeal of its cohosts, Bob Phillips and his wife, Kelli, who had decided they wanted to take on new adventures fifty years after Bob founded TCR. Luckily, the Phillipses agreed to continue to host the show for two more years…

In my teens, I heard a radio commentator explain why our airwaves and periodicals are so filled with stories of failure and tragedy. News, he observed, is that which is unusual. In the United States, conditions are so salutary, relative to much of the world and even to our past, that advances in, say, air transportation and financial markets are far more commonplace than crashes. By contrast, I recall the commentator arguing, in China and Russia life is so tough that newspapers lead their front…

Some of the readers with whom I talk (and text and email) have complaints about Texas Monthly—but hardly ever about our coverage of food and drink. They praise taco editor José R. Ralat’s authoritative writing about our state’s Mexican and Tex-Mex cuisine, executive editor Patricia Sharpe’s knowing columns on the latest fine-dining establishments, and barbecue editor Daniel Vaughn’s expert assessments of smoked-meat purveyors. Many of our readers have, however, voiced a suggestion: that we cover…

One of my favorite mentors once observed that the design of a magazine is like its clothing; a publication needs a new and better-fitting wardrobe every so often, especially if it’s been working hard to get into better shape. Almost six years have passed since Texas Monthly last refreshed its design, so we’re proud to highlight some adjustments we’ve been working on for months. The most significant change is that we’ve sequenced the magazine’s stories in the manner of a fine meal, with tasty…

He’s surfed in Waco, skied in College Station, and braved a karaoke bar where Texas lawmakers serenaded one another.

Mimi Swartz’s latest epic is a must-read tale of a decades-long attempt to sabotage Texas’s public schools.