Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

Unveiling “Austin”

Giant Steps

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

What Will Become of the Library?

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

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

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

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

The Image in the 21st Century

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

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

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

The Clothes that Make the Man

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Wall Flowers

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

The Last Book Sale

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

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

No Gogh!

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

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

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

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

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

Welcome to Texas, Elon

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

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

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

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

The Catastrophe Guru

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

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

Lives in Limbo

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

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Dario Robleto artist profile

Robert Irwin in Marfa

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

The Great Mellowing

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

The Wonderful World of Bluth

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

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

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture