20 March 2013
So much of Allyson Bird’s blog post “Why I left news” rings true. Newspaper work is hard. The hours are long. The stress is wearying. The pay can be woeful. The business is changing, not always for the better, and scores of talented journalists are fleeing – or forced out – for other, not always greener, [...]
Posted in Journalism10 Comments
02 November 2012
As soon as I heard that Texas Children’s Hospital had a classroom for the children being treated at the hospital, I knew it was a story I had to do. It took several years to set up, but I persisted, knowing that this was a story that should be told. I walked away moved and [...]
Posted in Feature Stories, School Days0 Comments
10 October 2012
I got lost in history while working on this piece about Rice University’s 100th anniversary: the archival photos, decades-old newspaper clippings, speeches written in florid, formal prose. It gave me a chance to peek into Houston’s past, to imagine what the city must have been like in 1912, before the congestion, before the skyscrapers, before [...]
Posted in Feature Stories, School Days0 Comments
30 September 2012
One of the best things about covering education is getting to know people who let nothing get in their way of getting a degree. In this case, not heart attacks or strokes or the passage of decades. The non-traditional students I interviewed for this story were determined to graduate, no matter what it takes. Back [...]
Posted in Feature Stories, School Days0 Comments
25 July 2012
Some stories leave an imprint on a journalist’s soul. Some people we interview remind us that obstacles do not have to defeat us, and that help can come in even the darkest of situations. This story, which tells the tale of two amazing young people in Houston, did that for me. Young Houstonians go from [...]
Posted in Feature Stories, School Days0 Comments
22 September 2011
Taking the leap from a steady job as a staff writer into the uncertain world of freelancing is terrifying, sweat-inducing, exhilarating and in many ways, oddly freeing. Freeing in a way that goes beyond the flexibility, which allows me to continue teaching even as I keep writing. The freedom I’m referring to comes in the [...]
Posted in Book Reviews, Feature Stories, Journalism, Latino Issues0 Comments
30 August 2011
I really like the page design for this back-to-school food story I did for the Houston Chronicle. To read the entire story, click here.
Posted in Feature Stories0 Comments
30 July 2011
This is a piece I wrote for Mamiverse.com about being a Latina teacher and what classroom diversity can bring to education. By Monica Rhor My tenth-grade students sat in the darkness, their eyes fixed on the grainy black and white photograph magnified on a screen in front of the classroom. They considered the four figures [...]
Posted in Feature Stories, Latino Issues, School Days0 Comments
30 July 2011
There is something very moving about religious art. It goes far beyond aesthetic appeal or brushwork technique, and appeals directly to the soul. So writing about an exhibit of Ukrainian icons for this Houston Chronicle piece was both challenging and fascinating for me. Ukrainian Christianity through the ages By MONICA RHOR FOR THE CHRONICLE In [...]
Posted in Feature Stories0 Comments
20 July 2011
Marlen Esparza was tired when she arrived at Rudy Silva’s Elite Boxing Gym for her regular workout. I could see that right away. Weeks of training full-speed for a national bout, constant media attention, and travel had interrupted her normal routine and dampened her usual energy. But, as soon as she got into the ring for a few rounds of [...]
Posted in Feature Stories0 Comments
RT @markkatches: NBC reports US Attorney General signed off on search of private emails for Fox News reporter http://t.co/wWIPaaC0G0 - posted on 23/05/2013 22:37:56RT @chrondigger: Will you be at #IRE13? The planet's biggest, baddest gathering of investigative reporters is in #SanAntonio this June http… - posted on 23/05/2013 22:37:10
@monicarhor @jeromesolomon @ahstalon Please do! Would love to see. - posted on 22/05/2013 22:43:49@Nick_Mathews @jeromesolomon @ahstalon Thanks! I'll bring a copy for you. - posted on 22/05/2013 22:10:55Hot off the presses! The print edition of @AHSTalon - the paper produced by my high school students. http://t.co/qhEIVcI7Ry - posted on 21/05/2013 07:40:36© 2013 Monica Rhor. Powered by WordPress.
