Here is some of my writing from over the years.
If you are interested to learn why I left full-time journalism to focus more on environmental and social impact, start here:
Pure Ecstasy
The wild story how MDMA leapt from underground psychological treatment networks and into dance club culture. (Playboy, December 2015):
Hearts and Minds and Rhino Horns
A small tribe of U.S. military vets are defending rhinos against poachers in South Africa. Are they trying to save the wild – or themselves?
(Playboy, September 2018):
‘I Did This Alone’
Dallas, Lone Gunmen, and the Hijacking of American History
(D Magazine, September 2016)
Texas After the Storm
The Golden Triangle sits on one of the world’s richest oil reserves. After Hurricane Harvey, it became ground zero in the war between industry and environment.
(Playboy, February 2018)
Street Smarts
Will AI traffic signals radically reinvent urban transportation?
(Popular Science, April 2022)
When In Roma
When two Americans purchased one of Italy’s most storied soccer clubs, they collided with a culture that runs deeper than sport.
(SB Nation Longform, April 2015)
Wiped Out
Big-wave surfing was the world’s most dangerous and thrilling sport, until crystal meth nearly sank it.
(Playboy, January 2017)
Buddy and Rhea Leen
and Bonnie and Clyde
Bonnie Parker wanted to be buried next to her lover, Clyde Barrow, but her mother refused. Their descendants now say reuniting the outlaws’ bodies is the only way to bring closure to the story that tore two families apart.
(D Magazine, May 2019)
No. 1 with a Bullet
As Leon Bridges stood on the precipice of his rapid-rise to superstardom, one thing was clear: there is no such thing as an overnight success.
(D Magazine, June 2015)
The Right to Bear Arms (and Say Stupid Stuff on Facebook)
Christopher Daniels is likely the first person ever imprisoned for being a “black identity extremist.” Is he a threat, or the latest example of how the FBI targets civil rights activists?
(D Magazine, October 2018)
Rob Allyn’s Journey
to the Edge of the Earth
He helped George W. Bush become governor of Texas and led Vicente Fox’s Mexican revolution. So why has political operative Rob Allyn obsessed for the last decade over the dream of producing a cursed Hollywood film set deep in the jungles of Borneo?
(D Magazine, March 2020)
The Lost History of
Dallas’ Negro Parks
Two artists were asked to explore the city’s segregated past. The history they found proved a bit too stark for the civic powers that commissioned their research.
(D Magazine, June 2016)
Painted Into a Corner
How a famous British artist nearly ruined his career by falling in love and moving to Dallas—which is not at all how he’d tell the story.
(D Magazine, February 2015)
Invisible Man
Eric Johnson’s escape from the poverty of West Dallas reads like a fairy tale. But his story took a turn when the city’s white oligarchs handed him the mayor’s office.
(D Magazine, May 2021)
The Boy Who Stayed Sick
By his fifth birthday, Christopher had gone to the doctor more than 300 times and had 13 major surgeries. His dad had a theory: the mother was making it all up.
(D Magazine, August 2019)
Popping Pills in the Bubble
How an odd cast of characters—including a mother of 10 and a cop—ran a deadly drug ring out of a townhome in tony Highland Park that left at least one teenager dead.
(D Magazine, April 2020)