Lauren Larson

These Suburban Gondoliers Have Seen 10,000 Proposals. Here’s What They’ve Learned About Love. Often privy to multiple marriage proposals a day, the gondola king of Irving has learned a thing or two about the affairs of the heart.

Is Irving the Venice of Texas or is Venice the Irving of Italy? I found out, for @texasmonthly.bsky.social www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/...

Behind the Scenes at America's Most Extreme Christmas Pageant Prestonwood Baptist Church’s 'The Gift of Christmas' features pyrotechnics, lasers, elves on trapezes, peacocks, and a flying Santa. Oh, and a nativity.

obsessed with @lonlozzin.bsky.social look behind the scenes at Prestonwood Baptist Church’s annual extravaganza "The Gift of Christmas," featuring three camels, two zebras, 1,200 cast members (including angels and a Santa who fly in on wires), and so much more www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/...

SMU’s Dinosaur Choir Was 75 Million Years in the Making The Dallas school’s reptilian-inspired band uses models of ancient skulls to play eerily abstract tunes.

There is no better score for These Times than a choir of dinosaur skulls moaning about the apocalypse. For @texasmonthly.bsky.social, I wrote about SMU's "dino choir" www.texasmonthly.com/news-politic...

the hallway at a Buc-ee’s in Mississippi leading to the bathrooms, with paintings hanging on the wall

I now think of @lonlozzin.bsky.social when I go to a Buc-ee’s bathroom thanks to this piece www.texasmonthly.com/style/bucees...

He Sold His Likeness. Now His Avatar Is Shilling Supplements on TikTok.

Your outie loves astrology, speaks fluent Spanish, and can offer you insurance for a low low rate www.nytimes.com/2025/08/17/b...

How Americans Fell Back in Love with Chili's The chain based outside Dallas has mounted a stunning financial comeback in recent years by leaning into its Texan roots and mobilizing Gen Z fans on social media.

I want to glow up like CHILI'S. Loved this piece from @paulaforbes.bsky.social for @texasmonthly.bsky.social www.texasmonthly.com/food/chilis-...

Can Noah Hawley Do for 'Alien' What He Did for 'Fargo'? ‘Fargo’ writer-director Noah Hawley has taken on ‘Alien: Earth,’ the biggest challenge of his career. Can he pull it off while learning to be a Texan?

😌 www.texasmonthly.com/arts-enterta...

Hideo Kojima: The Creator Inside the mind of one of our greatest living world-builders.

I profiled Hideo Kojima for SSENSE. He was funny and also very, very confident.

I love this @texasmonthly.bsky.social profile of Noah Hawley, especially how he talks about his wife here. Nothing performative and Wife Guy-ish about the admiration:

A Highly Opinionated Deep Dive Into Five Texas-Shaped Pools We traveled 1,400 miles across the state to sample our watery best.

Some pool reading from the pool canon @texasmonthly.bsky.social www.texasmonthly.com/travel/best-...

First Came the Flood. Then Came the Influencers. After the July 4 disaster, independent content creators arrived in the Hill Country alongside news reporters, marking an uneasy merging of social media and journalism.

“There’s no couth, I guess. That’s probably an old Texan word, but I just wish people had a little more couth right now.” Wrote about the content creators posting from the flood zone for @texasmonthly.bsky.social www.texasmonthly.com/news-politic...

“The River House Broke. We Rushed in the River.” The July 4 Texas flooding ripped our Kerr County home from its pillars, pulling us into the water and into the night. Then morning came.

As @texasmonthly.bsky.social has covered the floods this week we've all had our editor Aaron Parsley in our thoughts. His family's tragedy was horrific, and the fact that he was able to share it here, so clearly and movingly, is extraordinary. www.texasmonthly.com/news-politic...

On Its Hundredth Anniversary, Crider’s Reckons With a Hundred-Year Flood The Hill Country rodeo and dance hall will open again, but not this summer.

Many Texans can't remember a Hill Country summer without Crider's. I'm so grateful to the Moores for taking the time to speak with @texasmonthly.bsky.social while they were grieving. www.texasmonthly.com/news-politic...

At 40, She Discovered She Was One of America’s Best Free Divers Sara Burnett went from an introductory course to a world championship in just over a year.

I wrote about a Texan who discovered, at age 40, that she was a prodigy in a very unusual and very dangerous sport. For @texasmonthly.bsky.social www.texasmonthly.com/arts-enterta...

How a Small Texas Architecture Firm Designs the State's Prettiest Rest Areas An award-winning highway stop outside of Falfurrias is just one of Corpus Christi-based Richter Architects’ notable “transitory spaces” across the state.

Texas Monthly writers drive a lot, so we know a good rest area when we see it. Here's an ode to the potty architects who made some of our faves @texasmonthly.bsky.social www.texasmonthly.com/travel/prett...

Jobs and Internships Since 1973, Texas Monthly has chronicled life in contemporary Texas, reporting on vital issues such as politics, criminal justice, the environment,

An ultra-rare Excellent Media Job, senior writer at @texasmonthly.bsky.social 🤠https://www.texasmonthly.com/about/jobs-and-internships/

The Ethical Assassin: One Man's Quest for the Perfect Way to Kill a Fish What if there were a perfect way to kill a fish? To make it suffer less, taste better, and extend its shelf life so significantly that more people might enjoy more kinds of fish all over the world? An...

An excellent dive into a thing I rarely think about in spite of eating fish approx. 100 times a week, from brettmartin.bsky.social www.gq.com/story/the-et...

The Eviction Cure What happens when a hotshot Dallas attorney gets ticked off about thousands of his fellow citizens being thrown out of their homes in violation of the law? Courtroom fireworks, for starters.

Congrats to J.K. Nickell and @texasmonthly.bsky.social, who won an ABA Silver Gavel Award today for this fantastic feature about a Dallas eviction lawyer's heroics www.texasmonthly.com/news-politic...

Texas's Hottest Art Gallery Is the Buc-ee's Bathroom The convenience chain's expertly curated collections for every location serve as a springboard for photographers and painters.

Preparing to make my first Buc-ee's acquisition. I wrote about the (actually super involved) process of curating art for the Buc-ee's bathroom galleries for @texasmonthly.bsky.social www.texasmonthly.com/style/bucees...

The Guy Who Wants to Engineer Woolly Mammoths Has Engineered . . . Something Meet the woolly mammouse, a triumph of genetic editing—and optics.

I wrote about the mammouse, an early breakthrough in the effort to resurrect mammoths, for @texasmonthly.bsky.social and for myself because I love furry little freaks www.texasmonthly.com/news-politic...

The Men Spending $1,000 a Day in Pursuit of Big Bass Meet the weekend warriors stalking double-digit lunkers on the state’s many private lakes—which themselves cost landowners small fortunes.

🎵bass boys bass boys, what you gonna do🎵 www.texasmonthly.com/travel/big-b...

bad news for texan fans of fx show the bear: i can confirm that the "crew ➡️" and "the bear ➡️" production signs spotted in east austin yesterday were for the austin-based production company that is also called the bear thebear.us

When the Catholic Church Ran a Public School in Small-Town Texas In a bizarre precedent to today’s debates over faith in the classroom, a local ISD let nuns run its school for twelve years. It went about as you’d expect.

Come for the nuns, stay for the accidental undertaker.

A Lauren Larson special—

www.texasmonthly.com/news-politic...