Houston Press | The Leading Independent News Source in Houston, Texas

Robert E. Howard and his dog Patches in front of the Howard house, Cross Plains, Texas, (date unknown).

Conan's Creator Gets His Own Epic Origin (and Death) Tale Told

By Bob Ruggiero

Apr 2, 2021

With the recent death of Larry McMurtry at the age of 84, Texas lost one of its biggest literary stars and influences. Someone whose works managed to be both popular and of higher ambition at the same time. And of course, found even wider fame in television and movie adaptations...

In 1941, Captain America was socking it to Hitler months before the U.S. entered World War II. Co-creators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby spent decades fighting unsuccessfully for ownership rights to the All-American hero.

Superheroes (and Their Creators) Battle for Truth, Justice, and Cold Hard Cash

By Bob Ruggiero

Mar 29, 2021

Empire of the Superheroes: America’s Comic Book Creators and the Making of a Billion Dollar Industry By Mark Cotta Vaz 488 pp. $34.95 University of Texas Press Pop culture and comic book fandom have been abuzz recently with the release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League. It’s an extended (way extended)...

"Filth Elder" John Waters will perform at the Heights Theater Friday, December 13.

A Very Filthy Christmas: John Waters Is Coming to Town

By Gladys Fuentes

Dec 10, 2019

Every year, like clockwork, there are signs of the upcoming holiday season. It can be something as subtle as a mailbox overflowing with junk mail to the giant bows atop of fancy shopping centers. John Waters and his annual Christmas show can be added to the list of indicators that...

Chris Layton (left), Tommy Shannon, and Stevie Ray Vaughan—the band known as Double Trouble—dining at Sam’s BBQ.

How Austin Became "Austin" is a Wild 'n Weird Tale

By Bob Ruggiero

Apr 10, 2019

Austin to ATX: The Hippies, Pickers, Slackers & Geeks Who Transformed The Capital of Texas By Joe Nick Patoski 376 pp. $32 Texas A&M University Press First things first: You are reading the identity of the publisher correctly above. That the literary cabal at College Station could (and would) put...

The New York Times newsroom in 1942, when print newspapers ruled the information age. Not to mention all those white men at their desks. My how things have changed...

Controversial Book Looks at "Truth" in Today's Journalism

By Bob Ruggiero

Feb 14, 2019

Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and the Fight for Facts By Jill Abramson 544 pp. $30 Simon & Schuster You’d be hard pressed to name an industry that the Digital Age has affected more – both positively and negatively – than journalism. Though the days of people getting...

Houston Filmmakers Tackle Tough Subject of OCD in New Short

By Susie Tommaney

Sep 4, 2018

Where's your happy place? Whether it's gardening, dance, art or volunteering, those lucky enough to find that passion also get respite from office drama, money worries or life's travails. But what happens when your paintbrush or gardening trowel grows fangs and bites you instead? Such is the premise of Sky,...

The Texas Presidents: LBJ, GHWB, and GWB.

Pulitzer-Prize Winning Texan Looks at Texas...and It's Not All Wright

By Bob Ruggiero

Apr 11, 2018

God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State By Lawrence Wright 368 pp. $27.95 Alfred A. Knopf The writing of Lawrence Wright is all over the map. Novelist. Playwright. Screenwriter. Journalist. A correspondent for both Texas Monthly and The New Yorker. And author of Important...

In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, the backstage area was extremely tight, adding an extra challenge to the actors' entrances and exits.

Stages Repertory Theatre Readies Itself For a Big Move

By Margaret Downing

Jan 29, 2018

The plan was to keep it simple. Stages Repertory Theatre’s board and directors, like most thriving mid-size operations, had stayed solvent all these years with a mix of audience favorites and daring, edgier works while keeping a careful eye on the purse strings. They knew they needed a redo to...

Houston is what you make of it. That's why we're here.

The Houston Press Seeks Arts Freelancers

By Chris Gray

Mar 22, 2017

We're hiring new contributors to our Arts section.

George Saunders pulled off his third reading at InPrint without even breaking a sweat.

George Saunders Talks Lincoln, Writing and His First Novel at InPrint

By Dianna Wray

Mar 7, 2017

Famed short story writer George Saunders had the idea for his first published novel — based on the death of Willie Lincoln, President Abraham Lincoln's beloved son — in his head for more than 20 years before he decided to try and write it. On Monday night Inprint brought Saunders...

Top 10 Overrated Contemporary Writers

By Steve Jansen

Mar 3, 2017

We’ve read something by all of the authors on this list. For the most part, we’re into whatever they’ve published, whether it’s a novel, short fiction or an essay collection. Which means this list isn’t some sort of Spanish Inquisition-ish and tearing down of these scribes. It’s just that these...

Charlie Parker onstage in New York, 1947. Parker's heroin use was so much a part of his persona, other musicians tried it in an effort to sound like him. That's Miles Davis - who had his own issues with the stuff - next to him.

Beatniks, Beboppers and Bennies and Their Tight Connections

By Bob Ruggiero

Jan 11, 2017

Bop Apocalypse: Jazz, Race, The Beats, and Drugs By Martin Torgoff 432 pp. $26 Da Capo Press The nexus between artistic creativity and drug abuse is hardly a new or unplumbed concept. Nor the discussion of whether certain art can is created either because of or in spite of the...

The Five Best Things to Do in Houston This Weekend: Brews, Zines and HOLIDAZE

By Susie Tommaney

Nov 18, 2016

The Bayou City is awash in color this weekend. More than 200 artists are chalking street drawings downtown at Hermann Square, we've got the stained-glass spiegeltent decked out for holiday beer tastings, and Society for the Performing Arts has an over-the-top holiday production with snowmen, penguins, angels, reindeer, toy soldiers, gingerbread men and...

Donald Trump Is Good for Art and Culture

By Steve Jansen

Nov 11, 2016

If arts and culture has felt unremarkable or lacking passion for the past eight years or so, there might be a reason for that. A Democrat in the Oval Office. Oftentimes, the best art isn’t created when there’s plenty of food in the fridge and ample stacks of cash in...

Top 10 Most Overrated Avant-Garde Artists

By Steve Jansen

Nov 2, 2016

From literature to architecture, experimental music to painting, these 10 creatives can be summed up in the words of Sir Paul McCartney: "Avant garde a clue." Banksy Just because an artist’s identity is unverifiable doesn’t make him “underground” or “good.” But somehow, the English street artist and his cloaked persona...

At WAN Poetry, a Place of Home and Healing in Houston

By Katie Sullivan

Jun 29, 2016

Erica Nicole's left hand shook tenuously, her poem wilted from the oppressive summer humidity. Approaching the vintage style microphone with a rainbow ribbon pinned to her chambray shirt dress, she spoke: One man might have done the shooting, but we have been loading the bullets for him for years. Erica...

Ordinary Light by Pulitzer Prize Winner Tracy K. Smith Looks at the Extraordinary of the Everyday

By Holly Beretto

Feb 17, 2016

"Memory is a flawed lens," says Tracy K. Smith, author of the widely acclaimed Ordinary Light, heralded as one of the most anticipated books of 2015 by Time Out New York. "And it was exciting to be an investigator of my own life." Smith's memoir is her fourth book, and...

David Sedaris Talks Travel, Trash, and Tumors At Jones Hall

By Pete Vonder Haar

Nov 9, 2015

An Evening with David Sedaris Jesse H. Jones Hall for the Performing Arts November 7, 2015 Ever since he came to American's attention with The SantaLand Diaries back in 1992, David Sedaris has made a comfortable living from the comedy of discomfort. No topic is off limits, including his own family...

Wil Wheaton and Why I Won’t Write for Huffington Post Anymore

By Jef Rouner

Nov 4, 2015

After Wil Wheaton wrote a piece called “Seven Things I Did to Reboot my Life” for his blog he was approached by Huffington Post to possibly reprint it. Wheaton was understandably excited and asked what the pay was, only for Huff Po to inform him that they don’t pay for...

6 Popular Internet Words That I Have Grown to Dislike

By Chris Lane

Feb 16, 2015

The English language is a constantly evolving one, and that keeps things interesting.Words are fascinating in that they can elicit a strong response from some people. I know a few people who can't stand the word "moist," for instance. Some words have a lifespan of sorts, initially starting as a...

Writing

A Trio of Texas Authors Take on the Many Myths of the Alamo

1974: The Year that Movies, Music, TV, and Politics All Came Together

I support

Keep the Houston Press Free.