Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

The ‘Moby Dick’ of Texas Football Novels Is Hard-hitting as Ever

Dario Robleto artist profile

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Luz Maria Sanchez: Narco Violence, as Seen by a Journalist-Turned-Artist

The Last Book Sale

Sedrick Huckaby Looks His Subjects in the Eye, from Dreamers to an Ex-President

Robert Irwin in Marfa

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Houston Photo Exhibit Documents First Markers of Modern U.S.-Mexico Border

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

The Wonderful World of Bluth

No Sign of Trump’s “Millions” of Illegal Voters in Texas

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Houston’s National Women’s Conference, 40 Years Later

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

While We Were Sleeping: The Feds Say a Price-fixing Scheme Costs Texas Patients Tens of Millions

The People’s Champion (Vincent Valdez’s ‘Dream Baby Dream’)

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

Lives in Limbo

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

The Psychedelic State of South Texas (Fernando A. Flores)

Wall Flowers

The Great Mellowing

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Welcome to Texas, Elon

The Catastrophe Guru

Unveiling “Austin”

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

What Will Become of the Library?

Brutally Suppressed in Her Lifetime, Gertrude Beasley Is Finally on Our Bookshelves

Has a San Antonio Inventor Solved a Problem of Small-scale Wind Power?

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Giant Steps

The Clothes that Make the Man

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

Did Texas Blackouts Reveal Austin’s New Real-Estate Hot Spots?

EAST Austin Is Over. What’s Next for an Art Scene That’s Losing Its Nucleus?

No Gogh!

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

The Image in the 21st Century