When Yasmin Diallo Turk, a graduate student at Texas State University and mother of two, made a visit to her husband's high school in Senegal, West Africa she saw a chance to take action on her belief that small efforts can create large changes for the better.

Senegal is...

The release of my novel The Earthquake Machine inspired me to tap into the active, sassy community of Young Adult (YA) book bloggers. What I found was an empowered group of young women who often drive YA book sales. I also encountered something surprising: many YA book bloggers...

Tonight (Thursday, March 1) Indie pop diva DD Dagger will kick off the release of her second album Radixxx with a live performance at Austin's 29th Street Ballroom.

I met with DD Dagger aka Allyson Lipkin at Sweetish Hill, a little bakery in downtown Austin, to discuss the release...

Every once in a very long time, a debut novel appears that carries such literary and emotional power that the reader loses herself utterly in its glorious, painful, mesmerizing pages. The Iron Horse by Dawn Erin is just such a book.

A full-blown heroin addict by her late teens,...

How do I even start to write a book review of a novel written by one of my all-time heroes?

Murry Taylor isn't just my role model because he wrote the bestselling Jumping Fire (published by Harcourt in 2000), a memoir of his experiences as a smokejumper. He's also my...

Amanda Hocking, self-published, prolific author of young adult paranormal novels, recently became the 14th writer to join the "Kindle Million Club," having sold over 1 million copies of her e-books in the Amazon.com Kindle Store.

Hocking is seen as a trailblazer and inspiration for struggling writers unable to acquire book...

When it became clear that Rick Perry would throw his hat in the ring for the GOP presidential nomination, James Moore, former longtime member of the Texas press corps and NY Times bestselling author (Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential), spent three days writing a 93-page...

Mickie Spencer, a certified welder and largely self-taught student of interior and industrial design, struggled for years for her first big break as a designer. Though eager to create a showroom where she could showcase her work, she realized it wasn't financially feasible to open a gallery space or store....

As part of an internship during her graduate studies in public policy, Yasmin Diallo Turk traveled to her husband's hometown of Thies, Senegal. She spent the summer working with an organization encouraging education in the local communities through volunteerism.

As part of her trip, she toured her...

On a sleepy summer afternoon at the Water Tower, a high-end mall in Chicago, a gaggle of teenage girls spot teen heartthrob Johnny Z., star of the British reality TV show Irresistible.

The girls start shrieking, following Johnny Z. and filming him with their iPhones. Johnny Z. walks with a...

Two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and NY Times bestselling author H.W. Brands is perhaps best known for his presidential biographies. But with his new book The Murder of Jim Fisk for the Love of Josie Mansfield, the first in his "American Portrait" series intended to bring attention...

On August 3, 2011, Palmer Lake Police Officer Jennifer Jack (mother of three and one of my best friends) was dispatched to Interstate 25 on a call to help the Colorado State Patrol with a reported roll-over accident. On her way to the scene, she was told that the two...

In my late teens, I listened with devotion to the song "Alien She" by the punk band, Bikini Kill, which was released on their 1993 album Pussy Whipped.

In the song, Bikini Kill's lead singer Kathleen Hanna sings about the part of herself, which she calls the "alien she," that...

Melissa Bryan hits the music scene full force today with her debut solo album Return of the Woman, a spirited collection that celebrates the human ability to thrive despite, and sometimes because of, adversity.

Bryan's songs are full of frustration, hope, and an outrageous joyfulness. Her lyrics, at times...

During the second season of The Sopranos (still generally considered to be one of the best television shows of all time), Janice Soprano was totally in love with and happily engaged to Richie Aprile. But when Richie hit her in the face for the first time, Janice picked Richie's own...

Be warned: the purpose of this post is to convince you to join me in my quest to complete the 100 Day Burpee Challenge.

If you haven't been tortured lately by a high school basketball coach, you may not know what a burpee is. To do a burpee you put...

Better This World, an engrossing, emotional documentary about the post-9/11 role of FBI informants in domestic terrorism cases, airs Tuesday, September 6 on PBS.

The documentary tells the story of David McKay and Brad Crowder, two young friends from George W. Bush's hometown of Midland, Texas who...

People in Texas often ask how I, an Austin native, came to work as a wildland firefighter on an elite, Type-1 Hotshot crew based on the Pike National Forest in Colorado. But when I lived in Colorado, no one asked me that question. That's because historically, while there have rarely...

A few years ago, I was bemoaning the fact that I didn't have many writer pals my age. Then one night I headed over to a book release party to celebrate Stephen Harrigan's brilliant novel Challenger Park. I hoped to have my book signed and maybe eat my...

My boyfriend Damon and I were in Philadelphia last week and his friend David picked us up to take us to a Bob Dylan show in Asbury Park.

As we drove, I told David about the first time I saw Dylan. It was 1990, and I was 14 and...