I’m the main writer for The War Eagle Reader, there’s no way I’m not the best features writer the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal ever had, I used to write a whole lot for the Alabama Baptist, and I’ve written for a bunch of alt-weeklies. Here’s some of the stuff I have to show for it.
Award winnners:
‘Everybody liked Richard’: Cause of death doesn’t change compassion for homeless — Six weeks after I started at the A-J, I wrote a feature on the death of a homeless man that got real “Woodstein!” when I discovered he hadn’t died the way everyone thought he had; Morris Communications, the paper’s parent company, named it the “Best Writing of 2008.”
Wood you Believe: The sticky note on my desk said to maybe call this guy because The Virgin had shown up in a piece of wood. I called and drove out to see him and got a ticket for parking illegally and then came back to the paper and wrote this super quick. People loved it. People hated it. The Texas Press Association loved it: “Henderson’s writing in this story makes the entry the clear winner.”
Other stuff:
Bo and Me — Auburn Magazine told me I was going to interview Bo Jackson, but I didn’t interview Bo Jackson. I was allowed to post my original version on The War Eagle Reader.
Pat’s Dry Field — 3,000 word novella on Paul Conner, the man behind the magically draining field at Jordan-Hare Stadium for The War Eagle Reader.
Making a comeback: Pretty sure this was the last big story I wrote for the A-J. A story about a high school football player seriously injured during a playoff game. I made his dad cry with it. I make myself cry with it. Front page the day Michael Jackson died.
Pastor answers question: ‘Does God care about football?’ — this story on Tim Tebow’s impact on the Christian’s game day belief set – i.e. whether or not God cares about football – made Dan Shanoff’s SECCG Eve list of “great Tebow-related stuff” along with pieces from ESPN and ABC and various other big-time sports sites. So that’s cool. The original version appeared in the A-J.
Music stuff:
Freedom brings ‘sky’s-the-limit’ feeling for OK Go — OK Go’s Tim Nordwind and I kind of hit it off. Talked to him at the height of their video warehouse-filling Rube Goldberg Machine video. Hard to believe it’s been nearly a year. // Indianapolis Star — wrote another version for Orlando Weekly
Colorblind Soul — tedious piece for The Chicago Reader that asks whether soul revivalist Sharon Jones “needs to worry that her audience is full of white hipsters.”
Halestorm gets off on you — trusty girl-in-a-band angle with Lzzy Hale of Halestorm // Boston Weekly Dig.
The devil’s rejects: Making Christian hardcore fashionable — story on The Devil Wears Prada’s post-Christian rock Christian rock // San Antonio Current
Finding Neverland: Royal Bangs bows to the King of Pop — they were listening to Off The Wall when they got the text // San Antonio Current.