2024

Image Problems | Virginia Quarterly Review | November
On Harrison and the death of racism.

* The Story of Minh | D Magazine | October
Plano optometrist and Pokémon master Minh Nguyen has tracked down nearly 200 former classmates. It may have saved his life.

* Clean-Water Power Couple: Debbie Doss and Cowper Chadbourn | Garden & Gun | September
A married duo help keep Arkansas rivers and streams flowing free and clear.

Johnny Cash Enters the House of Representatives | Garden & Gun | September
Arkansas sculptor Kevin Kresse on casting the Man in Black in bronze.

Meet the Oscar-Nominated Filmmaker with Arkansas as His Muse | Garden & Gun | September
A new documentary showcases how Andy Sarjahani melds his Ozark roots and Iranian heritage to create powerful films.

Loving Life in Fayetteville | Southern Living | September
This Northwest Arkansas college town is easy to love and hard to leave. (Note: A PDF of the print version—which was not cut down by half—available on request.)

One City, Three Ways: Bentonville, Arkansas | Southbound | August
Foodies, art lovers, and cycling enthusiasts alike will fall in love with this Ozarks town, known for being the birthplace of Walmart.

* NW Arkansas Cost of Living Strains Teachers’ Household Budgets | Arkansas Advocate | August
”A politically salient canary in the coal mine … indicative of a broader systemic issue,” one instructor says.

* Oral History: Arkansas Cottage Bakers | Southern Foodways Alliance | July
Arkansas bakers and makers can sell their products directly to consumers, running fully operational bakeries in their kitchen, without needing to get a green-light from health inspectors. It sounds like a dream, but oftentimes, it’s not so simple.

* How Two Smart People Fell for a Classic Facebook Scam | The Washington Post | March
After one man loses control of his social media account, an acquaintance gets bilked out of $5,000.

Meet the Meat Loaf Lady of Bella Vista, Arkansas | Garden & Gun | March
How a supermarket cook and her many Facebook fans stirred up a foil-wrapped frenzy.

* The Expanding Table | Longreads | February
For one baker and educator in Northwest Arkansas, food is a connection to her family’s roots in Gaza—and an essential way to share the stories of their culture.

2023

A Weekend Getaway Itinerary for Visiting Hot Springs, Arkansas | Southbound | December
Once renowned for its healing waters, Hot Springs still refreshes and renews, offering guests a nuanced travel experience.

This Small Arkansas Town Would Like to Keep Its 800-Pound Meteorite, Please | Garden & Gun | November
Nearly a century after it crashed to Earth in Northeast Arkansas, the Paragould meteorite finds its way home.

Concern Over Possible Buffalo National River Redesignation Draws Huge Crowd to Small Arkansas Town | Arkansas Advocate | October
Most speakers voice fears of what a national park preserve would do to area already stressed by visitors.

The Good Earther: Adam Chappell | Garden & Gun | September
An inspiring farmer goes soil deep to prove what’s old is new again.

* Googling ‘Oldest Structure in the Americas’ Leads to Heaps of Debate | The Washington Post | August
An in-depth dig into the controversy surrounding the age of the LSU Campus Mounds and the effects of the Information Age on the scientific process.

* How an Arkansas Bookstore Preserves What Gets Left Behind in Used Books | Garden & Gun | August
At Dickson Street Bookshop, time capsules capture misplaced, lost, and discarded treasures.

Digging for Precious Stones at Crater of Diamonds State Park | Soutbound | May 2023
Hunt for hidden gems (that you can keep) at the only public diamond mine on earth in Murfreesboro, Arkansas.

* SW Arkansas and the Promise of ‘Green’ Lithium Extraction (two-part series) | Arkansas Advocate | March
A two-part investigation into the promise and possible environmental peril of lithium extraction in Southwest Arkansas.

Chicken Farms Hide in Plain Sight Under Arkansas Law | Arkansas Advocate | March
Legislation passed nearly 20 years ago has allowed Arkansas poultry operations to fly under the radar. A recently decided court case may change that.

The Growing Season | Arkansas PBS | January 2022-January 2023
A year-long podcast that examined the intersection between agriculture and mental heath through the lens of six Arkansas farmers.

MLK Gets His Day (or The Passion of Kelly Duda) (2018)

On April 16, 1985, then-Gov. Bill Clinton signed House Bill 132, which declared that both Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Robert E. Lee Day would be celebrated on the third Monday in January. More than three decades later, Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed Senate Bill 519, separating the two. To say that many people played a part in getting the state to that place, both publicly and behind the curtain, would be to grossly understate the point; this is the years-long story of one of them.

What Lies Beneath (2017)

Before the construction of Arkansas's Blakely Mountain Dam was completed in the 1950s, the islands that now dot Lake Ouachita were hilltops. Looking out over the water, it’s tempting to say that there’s nothing left—and that the communities that now lay beneath the water are gone forever. But for those people who once called places like Buckville home—and who’ve gathered on the shore for 75 years, the closest they can get to going home again—there’s more than meets the eye.

Reconnecting Terry (2014)

In 2003, Terry Wallis spoke for the first time in two decades. This feature took an intimate look at how his life had changed 10 years later, and the radically different role he’d played—a son, a father, and a grandfather—in the lives of those who knew and loved him. To spend time with Terry was to realize there was an awareness that at first, second, third glances wasn’t immediately apparent—like a cork bobbing beneath the surface—but which appeared in full when a joke was cracked, and he began laughing, head lolling, the glimmer of total understanding in every hoarse and breathy laugh.