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Greater State column| Hunting Humans
‘Hunting Humans’ Brings the Fringe to the Center The far ends of our colorful political spectrum rarely cause me much worry. I trust the armed militias reportedly roaming the U.S.-Mexico border and...
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Introducing a Greater State | a new column for The Texas Observer
No one ever really leaves Texas, not really. I think the same can be said about New York City, another place that has come to define me. New York is a place I traveled to, found myself in and learned...
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Searching for La Perdida |Oxford American magazine
This one was special. It was a story in which living it was as necessary as writing it. Searching for La Perdida appeared in the Oxford American’s Texas Music issue. The piece is about finding home by...
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The War of Forgetting | Guernica Magazine
On May 1, Guernica magazine published my piece, The War of Forgetting, in honor of Eduardo Galeano who passed away a few weeks earlier. Vela Magazine later selected the piece for as part of its Women...
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Police Brutality and Latinos_Cosmo For Latinas
In looking back at 2015 I can’t help but think of three important tenets of journalism: bearing witness, telling the story and holding institutions and public officials accountable. Last year, Cosmo...
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We Were Made For This_Campus Shootings
In Fall 2015, I returned to UT-Austin, my alma mater, as a visiting lecturer in the Radio-Television-Film department. I designed the audio documentary course to explore the overt and subtle role of the...
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Best of 2015: My Name is Alex
In Summer 2013, I came across a boy waving down passing cars for help along a remote country road in South Texas. He had no way of knowing it, but the boy was stranded in the middle of Brooks County, a...
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Upcoming Speaking Engagement: The Media Consortium conference in Philly
On February 18, 2016, I will be speaking at the The Media Consortium‘s annual conference. The panel, “What Do freelancers Want” will cover, fees, contracts and the delicate dance of the editor-writer...
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Speaking Engagement: Power of Narrative
On April 2, at the Power of Narrative Conference in Boston, I will deliver a talk on External and Internal Landscape as it has to do with narrative journalism. Landscapes contains ideas and writings...
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Video: Postcard Becomes Mirror
In late January, I traveled to West Texas, to Terlingua, at the invitation of an innkeeper who offers space to writers and artists. As these things often do, the entire experience came together through...
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Taco Wars and Terrorist Cowboys | Washington Spectator
_ This piece seems to be increasingly relevant in this, ahem, interesting, election season. Earlier in the year a “taco war” broke out between Austin and San Antonio after a clearly confused New...
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Me and Talese in the Middle | Guernica
In the Spring I was invited to speak at the Power of Narrative conference in Boston. I remember attending the conference years ago, admiring the speakers and imagining–hoping for–the opportunity to...
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Our Existing Trumpworld | Guernica
This piece took ten years to place. I first drafted some of the arguments found in my new piece, Trumpworld, in 2006 while I was working at The Washington Post. Then, as now, political chatter...
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An Identity Politics Where ‘Victims’ Vanquish Others | The New York Times
The NYTimes’ Room for Debate recently posed this question: Is Criticism of Identity Politics Racist or Long Overdue? Some complain of being unfairly accused of bigotry. Others say discrimination needs...
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My Name is Alex | NY Times selection
In Feb. 2017, The New York Times’ Michael Powell selected my reported essay, “My Name is Alex” for the Times’ feature, “What We’re Reading,” which highlights “great stories from around the web.” The...
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Summer of Love | Oxford American
Five days before the 2016 election I proposed to Eliza Borné, my editor at the Oxford American, that in 2016 we, as a nation, had experienced a long-delayed realization of the 1967 Summer of Love, a...
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Best of 2015: My Name is Alex
In Summer 2013, I came across a boy waving down passing cars for help along a remote country road in South Texas. He had no way of knowing it, but the boy was stranded in the middle of Brooks County, a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Upcoming Speaking Engagement: The Media Consortium conference in Philly
On February 18, 2016, I will be speaking at the The Media Consortium‘s annual conference. The panel, “What Do freelancers Want” will cover, fees, contracts and the delicate dance of the editor-writer...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Speaking Engagement: Power of Narrative
On April 2, at the Power of Narrative Conference in Boston, I will deliver a talk on External and Internal Landscape as it has to do with narrative journalism. Landscapes contains ideas and writings...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Video: Postcard Becomes Mirror
In late January, I traveled to West Texas, to Terlingua, at the invitation of an innkeeper who offers space to writers and artists. As these things often do, the entire experience came together through...
View Article