Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

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

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

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

What Will Become of the Library?

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

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

Dario Robleto artist profile

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

Welcome to Texas, Elon

Lives in Limbo

The Clothes that Make the Man

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

No Gogh!

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Wall Flowers

The Image in the 21st Century

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

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

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

The Wonderful World of Bluth

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

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

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

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

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

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

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

The Catastrophe Guru

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

The Last Book Sale

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

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

The Great Mellowing

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Giant Steps

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

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Robert Irwin in Marfa

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

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

Unveiling “Austin”