🔥The 9th Round of Easy Loan, Earn $40 Reward is in progress❗️ ⏰ Promotion Period: January 15th - Feburary 15th, 2025 👉 Register now and check more details at gate.io/campaigns/358

Folks, the Houston Landing closes this week, putting dozens of journalists and staff out of work. Given the significant remaining need, we've increased our fundraising goal to $15,000. We're 74% of the way there, but we need your help. Please share widely: gofundme.com/f/support-hous…

ATTN hiring managers: This is exactly why you should bring Monique Welch into your newsroom

Weekend longread from the one and only Sarah Smith 🦙: Five years after his murder, George Floyd's loved ones reckon with a movement trying to erase him houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t…

Thrilled to announce Aviva Bechky will join Bao Ong, Sonia Garcia and me on @houstonchron's food team! houstonchronicle.com/about/newsroom… via @houstonchron

Five years after his murder, George Floyd's loved ones reckon with a movement trying to erase him houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t… via @houstonchron ✍️ Sarah Smith 🦙 📷 Elizabeth Conley Godofredo A. Vásquez Karen Warren

Those closest to Floyd combat his erasure in spheres both public and private. They push for stronger laws, bare their scars for the media. They reminisce about a man who made them laugh. It's been half a decade. They won't let anyone forget. Gift link: houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t…

Got the privilege of a call with two of George Floyd's siblings and one of his best friends, where I learned about the man they remember — and thought a lot about the power of memory (Gift link) Houston Chronicle houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t…

I promise this will make you feel happy for fifteen seconds:

ICE sent out a press release saying they arrested more than 400 people. Who were they? Where were they arrested? What specific crimes were they accused of? Where were they sent? ICE won't say houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t… via @houstonchron

FEATURE WRITING PORTFOLIO, DIV 2 Three stories by the same writer from any combination of feature beats. 🥇 1st Place: Sarah Smith 🦙 🥈 2nd Place: Samantha Swindler, The Oregonian 🥉 3rd Place: Maddy Rubin

One of my goals before taking on the Houston Chronicle critic job was to expand the types of restaurants we review: the types of cuisines, price points, geography and the people cooking the food. Granny Dee's Kitchen was all that: houstonchronicle.com/food-culture/r…

Are Houston's already-terrible drivers getting worse?? Kinda, yeah. Today's Houston Explained for Houston Chronicle: houstonchronicle.com/explained/arti…

Not to be ~earnest~ but I once decided to be insane and leave a prestigious job so I'd be able to write these kinds of stories — to slip into new worlds, to add the shards of disaster into meaning, to create opportunities for empathy Awards aren't everything but this means a lot

Loving the number of journalist friends who are sending me their beautiful fiction drafts — so cool to see the art for art’s sake side of everyone

Also separating a thing you do because you love it (writing) from the thing that contributes to your 401k and gives you healthcare (your journalism job) is just … healthy

Cheers to the man in the straw cowboy hat and ostrich boots who surveyed the airport seating options and chose to lay down along the window instead

I guess we are book snobs on Southwest Airlines

Cowboy In Repose (2025)

For anyone discussing or writing about Sinners: The plural of “Michael B. Jordan” is “Michaels B. Jordan”

We as a society are so doomed