Dan Solomon is a freelance journalist in Austin, Texas. He’s not going to write this whole thing in the third-person.
I write about cultures, and subcultures. Sports, politics, music, tech, film, food, science, religion—I like ’em all, and I like trying to understand how these things shape our world and our lives. I’m not a beat reporter—I don’t write much about what happened on the field on Sunday, or how many stars a new record or movie should get. I don’t spend much time covering the sausage-making of legislation these days, either. I try to provide context for how these disparate worlds affect our lives—what it means when we make excuses for celebrity chefs or winning coaches who abuse their power and influence, or how the current immigration debate shaped the new prestige drama on Starz this spring, or how Uber and Lyft found a way to eventually overturn regulations that Austin passed after a year and a half of trying, or how hiring a woman as a cinematographer gave a director a whole new way of looking at boxing movies.
I’ve done this work for a lot of different outlets. Since 2013, I’ve done most of it for Texas Monthly and Fast Company, where I work as a writer-at-large for their respective web outlets (and, less frequently, for their print magazines). At Texas Monthly, I broke the story of the Baylor sexual assault scandal with my co-author, Jessica Luther. At Fast Company, I profiled exciting young talents like Chance the Rapper and Ryan Coogler for the annual “Most Creative People” issue. I’ve also written things I’m proud of for the Austin Chronicle, where I covered the Wendy Davis filibuster in 2013; for Vanity Fair, where I explored the impact that Robert Rodriguez has had on Austin’s film culture; for Wired, where I’ve explained Austin’s Uber and Lyft issues for a national audience; for the New York Times, where I’ve told stories about Texas’ brighter creative lights; and a lot more.
I’m always for hire, and always looking for chances to tell stories that illuminate things about our culture that may not seem obvious at first. Get in touch if you’d like to work together.