Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

The Great Mellowing

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

The Last Book Sale

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

Welcome to Texas, Elon

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

Dario Robleto artist profile

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

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

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

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

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

The Image in the 21st Century

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

The Catastrophe Guru

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

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

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

The Clothes that Make the Man

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

No Gogh!

The Wonderful World of Bluth

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

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

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

Wall Flowers

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

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

Unveiling “Austin”

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

Giant Steps

What Will Become of the Library?

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Lives in Limbo

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

Robert Irwin in Marfa

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

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

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

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

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

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

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