Selected Writing
2024:
New York Times: The Fashion Influencers of the French Revolution
Texas Monthly: This Texas Photographer Turns Dead Animals Into Poignant Portraits
Vanity Fair: Leslie Jamison Explores Grief and Love All Twined Together
Texas Monthly: Topaz Hunting at the End of the World
2023:
New York Times Magazine: The Cult of Mother God Was Made For the Instagram Era
New York Times: How ‘Terms of Endearment’ Brought a Mother and Daughter Closer
Texas Highways: Hiking Through Houston’s Wild Frontier
New York Times: Margaret Renkl Writes in the Space Between Grief and Hope
Romper: Fear and Sunday School
Glamour: Toppling the Myth of the Supermodel
Texas Monthly: Ben Kweller Is Playing Through the Pain (Longreads Editors’ Picks)
New York Times: Rats in the Walls, Baby on the Way (Sunday Styles)
Good Housekeeping: I Didn’t Invite My Sister To My Wedding. I’m Far From Alone.
Texas Monthly: A Sanitation Worker, a Climate Scientist, and a Modern Dancer Walk Onto a Stage
Smithsonian Magazine: A Basquiat Exhibit Framed by Grief
Mother Tongue issue #4: Burn It Down (print only, read an excerpt here)
Texas Monthly: The Last Black-eyed Pea in Texas
New York Times: Samantha Irby Knows How To Trick You Into Thinking She’s Cool
Vox: How To Handle Grief on Mother’s Day
Time: Excerpt from So Sorry For Your Loss
LA Times: Wayne’s World Is Not the Movie Penelope Spheeris Wants to be Remembered For
Texas Monthly: Incarcerated and In Search of Color
Texas Monthly: Texas Women Fly-fishers Are Angling For Respect
Texas Highways: Glen Powell Likes a Tall Texas Tale (March 2023 issue)
New Monthly Column for NYT: Children’s Movies to Stream
2022:
Texas Monthly: Confessions of a Celebrity Ghostwriter
The New York Times: Rob Delaney Wants You To Know How He’s Feeling (It May Ruin Your Day)
Glamour: We’re Living in the Revenge Dress Era
Texas Monthly: Texas is the Main Character in Laura Griffin’s Twisty Mysteries
The New York Times: Robert De Niro’s Career in Five Artifacts
Smithsonian Magazine: How Two California Artists Can Help Personalize Your Eco Grief
Red Canary Magazine: Mansplaining Texas
Texas Highways: Inside the Effort For Black Cemeteries to Gain Historic Status (October 2022 issue)
Shondaland: Interview with Rachel Aviv
Teen Vogue: Retracing the Steps of Her Abortion (produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center)
Texas Monthly: The Yucca Whisperer (July 2022 issue)
The Forward: Inside the Last Days of a Small Town Synagogue (Wilbur Award winner, AJPA Award Winner)
Texas Monthly: The Biggest Crown in Texas Belongs to Miss Gay Texas USofA
Texas Monthly: Meet the Fearless Women of the Lone Star Mower Racing Association (Longreads Editor’s Pick, May 2022 issue)
The New York Times: With ‘Lucy and Desi,’ Amy Poehler Gets to the Heart of a Marriage
Texas Highways Magazine: The Rogue Wildflower Hunters of Texas (March 2022 issue)
InStyle: On Heather Havrilesky’s Book FOREVERLAND
Texas Monthly: The Spider Lady of East Texas Aims To Ease Your Black Widow Fears
Texas Highways Magazine: The Blackland Prairie Raptor Center Helps Birds of Prey Find Their Way (February 2022 issue)
Texas Monthly: Regenerative Ranching Is Better for the Environment, but Can It Be Profitable?
Texas Highways Magazine: Six and a Half Million Seedlings Sprouting (January 2022 issue)
2021
Teen Vogue: Why I’m Leaning Into My Grief This Holiday Season
Vox: One Good Thing: The 1970s children’s book that imagines an America overrun by trash
Shondaland: Is Competitive Tablescaping Ready For Its Close-Up?
Smithsonian Magazine: In Cemeteries Across the Country, Reenactors are Resurrecting the Dead
The New York Times: Are Zoom Weddings Virtually Over?
The New York Times: Julie Delpy Gives Voice to Women ‘On the Verge’
Texas Highways: Shalom on the Range (September 2021 issue)
Romper: The Toddler Clothes Battle Might End Me
The New York Times: The Secret To Finding That Off-Market Deal
The New York Times: ‘False Positive’ and the Horror-Filled Truth About Fertility Treatments
The New York Times: My 70-Year-Old Father Joined Tinder
The New York Times: Struggling to Write a Wedding Speech? It’s All in the Details
The New York Times: What Will We Do With Our Masks Now?
Texas Monthly: Interview with Lauren Hough
Smithsonian Magazine: The History of Lady Lookouts
Texas Highways: Feel Right At Home (April 2021 issue, Longreads Top 5 of the week)
Vox: What I Wish I’d Had in Texas
Romper: Various parenting articles
The Cut: Turns Out It’s Pretty Good: Golf
InStyle: Rethinking Dating Dealbreakers
Architectural Digest/Clever: Little Fixes To Brighten Your Space and Mood
Texas Highways: We Need the Rothko Chapel Now More Than Ever
Vogue: Please Let 2021 Be the Year of the Hotel Bathrobe
2020:
The New York Times: Can We Talk About the Mom in ‘A Christmas Story’?
Vogue: Bring on the Salty 2020 Holiday Cards
Smithsonian Magazine: During the Pandemic Avid Collectors Find Joy in Their Prized Possessions (Longreads Editor’s Pick, Smithsonian Top 25 Stories of 2020)
InStyle: Reckoning With Our Necks
The New York Times: ‘Tis the Season for Toilet Paper Ornaments
McSweeney’s: Various Humor
Architectural Digest/Clever: Instead of Couples Counseling, Try an Interior Designer
The Cut/New York Magazine: I Think About Olivia Newton-John’s Dolphin Song a Lot
The New York Times: Comfort Viewing: 3 Reasons I Love Three’s Company
Smithsonian Magazine: Will America’s Roadside Attractions Survive COVID-19?
Texas Highways: 15 Miles To Montrose
InStyle: Who Is the Black-and-White Photo Challenge Actually For?
Vox: The Best $129 I Ever Spent: Baby Formula
InStyle: ‘Amy Schumer Learns To Cook’ Is The Rom Com I Didn’t Know I Needed
The Girlfriend: On Being Zoomed Out
The New York Times: No Natural Light? No Problem.
Los Angeles Times: LA Affairs: Love, marriage and a baby. After 40.
The Girlfriend: The Existential Crisis of Removing a Tattoo
InStyle: Cate Blanchett In Mrs America Is The Best Villain on TV
Parents Magazine: Real Mom’s Guide To Getting Sh*t Done When Working From Home (+a video!)
The New York Times: Mourning My Mom, One Red Carpet At a Time
The Girlfriend: What It Feels Like To Age Out Of Your Job
Teen Vogue: The Myth of the Passionate Kiss
Slackjaw: Various Humor
Little Old Lady Comedy: I Am the Chantix Turkey and I Want My Fucking Oscar
Parents Magazine: The Tough-Love Advice I Can’t Wait To Give My Son
Teen Vogue: Being On The “B” List Isn’t Always a Bad Thing
Motherly: I never felt like a Helicopter or a Snowplow, so I created my own parenting styles.
Texas Standard: Reflections Of a ‘Born Again’ Texan
Jezebel: The Best Time I (Maybe) Regenerated An Ovary
SELECTED INTERVIEWS:
Shondaland: Interview with Andre Leon Talley
Shondaland: MJ Hegar
InStyle: Channing Godfrey Peoples
Interview Magazine: Mark Ryden
Salon: Dolly Parton
Bustle: Issa Rae
Brokenomics 50 Ways To Live the Dream on a Dime - Seal Press 2015
Bust Magazine gave it 4 out of 5 Boobs and said, "Gachman's buoyant humor is guaranteed to make you feel better about getting through a rough patch." Cosmo Magazine recommended it, and author Jenny Lawson said, "Dina’s writing is awesomely weird in the best way possible." Brokenomics is a collection of humor essays about everyone's favorite gut-busting topic - money. It was published by Seal Press in 2015.
MARIE CLAIRE: BROKENOMICS EXCERPT
"My earliest feelings about flea markets were fiercely negative..."
Check out a chapter HERE.
The Hairpin: ESSAYS AND INTERVIEWS
I've written several original pieces for The Hairpin, including an essay about catfights between women, a piece on teen angst, and an interview with a badass female bass fisherwoman. Read them HERE and HERE and HERE. I also wrote a manifesto called Deep Thoughts I Had While Watching the One Direction Documentary.
Texas standard: radio essays
I love writing for Texas Standard. I've written a piece called In Praise of Texas Wildness, inspired by a quote from one of my favorite movies, Terms of Endearment. There’s also an essay about raising a Texan outside of Texas, and a piece called “Reflections of a Born Again Texan.”
Forbes: Pop Culture and Entertainment
I wrote about the economic divide, wealth, the crazy sh*t rich people do, and the business of film and television for Forbes. How I got away with some of this is beyond me, but you can read them HERE.
Comic Books Published by Bluewater Comics/TidalWave Productions
Several years back I read a CNN article about a new comic book publisher that specialized in comics about real-life pop culture and political icons, from Hillary Clinton and Colin Powell to Dolly Parton and David Bowie. I called the CEO and pitched him a comic book about Elizabeth Taylor who, to my mind, was and is a total superhero. The first book was a success so they brought me on to write a second book about Marilyn Monroe. Both books involved hundreds of hours of research, and I designed each panel of the books, working closely with the artist to create a unique, truthful, and sometimes humorous visual story that captured the essence of each woman.
MARKETPLACE/NPR
On the more serious side, I've written for NPR's Marketplace, reporting on financial topics ranging from the cost of raising child prodigies to a gun made from a meteorite. Read them HERE.