Books

Writer Brianna Holt explains the nuances of being a young Black woman in a “post-racial” America in anticipated In Our Shoes book.

The Dallas Mavericks are the coolest team in the NBA (obviously), but did you know that they claim the original male performance squad in the league? That’s right the Mavs ManiAACs are the hip-hop dance crew you love to see in the stands and on the floor busting moves and team colors.

There are way too many cool things to say about Maureen “Mo” Beck, but we’ll hit the high notes (pun fully intended) that will get you to the Perot Museum of Nature and Science (2201 N. Field St.) for the National Geographic Live Speaker Series presented by Charles Schwab 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 8. Beck grew up climbing around Maine after defying a camp counselor who told her to skip a rock climbing activity.

Everyone’s got a story to tell. Now you’ve got a chance to share yours. The nonprofit storytelling group The Moth is bringing its Pop-Up Porch Tour to town starting on Wednesday.

With soaring fountains to captivating and rotund sculptures, Lynda Benglis has energized the Nasher Sculpture Center (2001 Flora St.) with overwhelming size, gesture and even some glitter. The physicality of the exhibition is inspiring, humbling and a bit nostalgic – some of the bronze work is based on Benglis’ earlier ceramic pieces.

The first time I ever saw Dirk Nowitzki was not on the basketball court, laser-focused on his game, leaping in the air with his one-legged fadeaway jump shot and bathing in the adoration of 20,000 fans chanting “MVP!” No, the first time I ever saw Dirk Nowitzki in person, he…

Two MAGA-themed romance novels are taking the literary world by storm.

Right now through July 10, the Dallas Museum of Art (1717 N. Harwood St.) presents Slip Zone: A New Look at Postwar Abstraction in the Americas and East Asia, which features collection works honoring “significant innovations” in various mediums. At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 13, Bruce Wood Dance presents an accompanying performance exploring abstract expressionism through color and movement.

Undermain Theatre (3200 Main St.) captivated streaming audiences last year with St. Nicholas by Conor McPherson. It’s back and staged for live viewing with enough vampire coven to satisfy the Halloween itch and enough Bruce DuBose to trigger the brain’s voiceover recognition quadrant (it’s such a good voice). DuBose plays the theater critic enchanted by an actress and swept up by a coven, so fork over $15-$30 at undermain.org and experience the dark tale live (or online).

Gray clouds covered the sky as raindrops fell outside of Denise Montgomery’s front door window. It was the second Monday of October in 1965.

Maybe you promised yourself during lockdown that you’d finally get back into reading.

Some considered it the most dangerous book in Dallas, a moniker coined by D Magazine years after it was published. The Accommodation: the politics of race in an American City, traces race relations and politics in Dallas from slavery to the early ’80s. It argues slavery was crueler in North Texas…

As soon as Zac Crain got copies of his new book, he gave one to his son Isaac. Isaac hadn’t read any of the manuscript while it was in progress, but Crain knew he needed to be one of the first people to see it in print. I See You…

April showers bring May flowers, and one of those flowers is the reopening of Dallas’ public libraries.

Larry McMurtry was regularly seen out and about in his hometown Archer City,  25 miles southwest of Wichita Falls. He was easily recognizable in his usual ensemble: jeans, a Dr Pepper polo and an air of humility. He didn’t see himself as a star novelist who influenced authors around the…

Although they often write in self-imposed solitude, this month, scribes will have a chance to get … well … Zoom together for some all-nighter writing sessions. November is National Novel Writing Month and NaNoWriMoers nationwide will be jotting down 50,000 words before the clock strikes midnight on Nov. 30. “I…

By chance, two Texans teamed up for a tennis doubles match. It would be the beginning of a decades-long friendship, and a powerful one in terms of politics. “They went back-to-back men’s doubles championships by helping each other with their own weaknesses,” says Charles Denyer, author of Texas Titans. The…

When Jamie Thompson woke up on July 8, 2016, the city of Dallas and its brass were still trying to figure out what the hell happened the night before. There was a shooting, and five law enforcement officers were dead. The perpetrator had been killed by a robot-controlled bomb. And…

One early morning in 1974, Michael Taylor, a 14-year-old Black kid growing up in the inner-city projects of Corpus Christi, was walking to school when he heard an argument between two adults in the garage of a bike shop that drew him closer to the conversation. The argument was between…

When author Tim Miller reads back his writing, he hears the booming voice of his father, a Pentecostal preacher. Those kinds of preachers speak while they breathe, Miller explains, and their sermons are filled with intense fervor and conviction. The Dallas-based writer, now 49, was never a preacher himself, but…

Is it just us, or has the content quality of Instagram significantly declined since the pandemic started? Let’s be honest, we know all our daily screen time reports are skyrocketing, but what are we even looking at on Instagram? It’s not like people are still posting many vacation photos or…

With COVID-19 being the headlining blip on everyone’s radar and social distancing becoming the new normal, people are most likely going to be hanging around the house quite a bit. Between school closures, business closures and all cultural institutions on lockdown, day-to-day life may get pretty boring. The bad news…