Jef Rouner

Jef Rouner (he/she/they) is an award-winning freelance journalist from Houston, Texas. He is also the author of The Rook Circle an Stranger Words, and a former member of The Black Math Experiment.

Houston, TX
Jef Rouner
Houston Airports Take Art Very Seriously

Houston Airports Take Art Very Seriously

Saba Razvi likes to write in airports, which is good because she flies out of George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) or William P. Hobby Airport (HOU) once a month. A poet, writer and critic who teaches at the University of Houston Victoria, she finds airports to be spaces full of

By Jef Rouner
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre At Fifty

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre At Fifty

It’s 1974, and in Round Rock, Texas, the devil is about to die a gruesome death. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre* released in theaters, and horror has never been the same. The occult almost completely dominated the horror film scene of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Just a

By Jef Rouner
The Mask Makers of Texas

The Mask Makers of Texas

The mask is a cornerstone of Halloween. Some people wear them to frighten others, enhancing the spooky nature of the season. Others use them as a form of trickery or roleplay, paying homage to the idea that Halloween is a time when the veil between worlds thins. Something about the

By Jef Rouner
New Exhibition Tackles Complicated Emotions Of Pollution And People

New Exhibition Tackles Complicated Emotions Of Pollution And People

Thirty years ago this month, the San Jacinto River caught fire. Storms thrown off Hurricane Rosa in Mexico resulted in heavy rains in Houston, flooding the city and rupturing a 40-inch gasoline pipeline. Fuel poured into the river and quickly caught flame. Waves of fire flowed down the water, destroying

By Jef Rouner
Houston’s River Oaks Theatre: Ready To Show Again

Houston’s River Oaks Theatre: Ready To Show Again

Houston’s oldest movie theater, the River Oaks, opened its doors again for the first time since 2021 on October 3. Under new direction and local ownership by Culinary Khancepts, it’s poised to become the beating heart of film in the city as it was over most of its

By Jef Rouner
Saving The Last Lighthouse In Galveston

Saving The Last Lighthouse In Galveston

The ferry ride to Bolivar Peninsula in Galveston County is the first time in months I’ve stepped out in the daylight and not immediately made a rude gesture at the oppressive sun. The air over Galveston Bay is a good ten degrees cooler than the asphalt oven of Houston,

By Jef Rouner
Ashley Worhol: Dead Bugs, Metal, and Cinema

Ashley Worhol: Dead Bugs, Metal, and Cinema

I needed a wing transplant for my tooth fairy, and that’s how I met Ashley Worhol for the first time in a decade. We were both vending at the night market at the National Museum of Funeral History in Houston this past summer. I was hawking my horror story

By Jef Rouner
The Most Interesting Man In Texas Opens A Haunted B&B

The Most Interesting Man In Texas Opens A Haunted B&B

Walking up the steps to the 134-year-old RavenWolf Manor, I start thinking about Anne Rice’s The Witching Hour. One of the protagonists, Michael Curry, would stare through the fence every day at a New Orleans mansion rumored to be the home of witches. If I had to pick one

By Jef Rouner
Houston’s Hardy & Nance Is The Place For New Artists

Houston’s Hardy & Nance Is The Place For New Artists

It’s the third Saturday of the month at the Hardy & Nance Studios. Nominally, the crowd is here for the Portraits in June show, one of the many themed gallery events that Hardy & Nance host twice monthly. While that part of the gallery certainly draws a crowd thanks

By Jef Rouner
Queer Horror Authors in Texas

Queer Horror Authors in Texas

It’s a scary time to be LGBTQ+ in Texas, but the state’s horror authors are using their voices to make sure the terror is felt both ways. Gabrielle Faust is among the loudest queer horror voices in Texas. Since 2008, she has released twelve novels and anthologies. Her

By Jef Rouner
Burning Flipside: The Burning Man of Texas

Burning Flipside: The Burning Man of Texas

Outsiders call Burning Flipside an art festival; people who actually go there call it a burn. Set in the hill country around Central Austin, Burning Flipside is the Texas take on the Burning Man global phenomenon. Every May, thousands hike into the woods to live in what is essentially a

By Jef Rouner
Comicpalooza Founder John Simons Returns As An Author

Comicpalooza Founder John Simons Returns As An Author

John Simons is the man who put Houston back on the comic convention map with Comicpalooza until he stepped away in 2018. Now, he’s back as an honored guest thanks to his new career as a fantasy and horror novelist. He’ll appear at Comicpalooza this weekend, hosting a

By Jef Rouner
Houston Community College Brings Couture to Comicpalooza

Houston Community College Brings Couture to Comicpalooza

The line between a superhero costume and a fashion statement is razor thin and, at Houston’s Comicpalooza, it will disappear entirely thanks to a joint venture between Houston First and Houston Community College. Comic Couture is a competition between HCC design students for an opportunity to showcase their talents

By Jef Rouner
Rosewood Enchantikal Cottage: A Space for Art and Fairies

Rosewood Enchantikal Cottage: A Space for Art and Fairies

There has been a mini renaissance of paganism in Houston over the last decade, a movement accelerated by the trauma of COVID and political unrest. Walking into the Rosewood Enchantikal Cottage feels like stepping into another world where there are fewer missiles and more fairies. “I want to have a

By Jef Rouner
The Art of Hurricane and Climate Change Trauma

The Art of Hurricane and Climate Change Trauma

There is something unsettlingly medical about Deborah Jack’s exhibition at the Houston Center of Photography. Intertidal Imaginaries: The Resistant Geographies of the Shore(coast) in the Aftermath of Saltwater(storm) surges an exploration of the devastation that hurricanes wreak on the environment and human structures of her native Saint-Maarten.

By Jef Rouner
All About The Prince Course At The University Of Houston

All About The Prince Course At The University Of Houston

Music legend Prince may be gone, but his legacy lives on through albums, film, iconography, and a college level course taught by Marc Newsome at the University of Houston this semester. “He is the perfect poster kid for any type of study,” says Newsome. “Like Michelangelo, he did all these

By Jef Rouner