Skip hollandsworth

Walter Ned "Skip" Hollandsworth
Pen name	Skip Hollandsworth
Occupation	Journalist, Screenwriter
Nationality	American
Period	1981–present

Walter Ned Hollandsworth (born November 9, 1957), better known by his pen name of Skip Hollandsworth, is an executive editor at Texas Monthly magazine, and is one of Texas’ best-known writers. In April 2010, the American Society of Magazine Editors awarded Hollandsworth the National Magazine Award for Feature Writing for “Still Life,” the story of John McClamrock.

Biography

Hollandsworth was born on November 9, 1957 in Kannapolis, North Carolina. He is the son of the Reverend Walter Ned Hollandsworth, a Presbyterian minister. Hollandsworth grew up in Lexington, Kentucky where his father was the pastor at Meadowthorpe Presbyterian Church from December, 1961 to December, 1968. When he was eleven years old, Hollandsworth moved with his family to Texas, settling in Wichita Falls in December, 1968, where his father served as pastor of the Fain Memorial Presbyterian Church.

Hollandsworth’s father, uncles and grandfather graduated from the Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, Virginia. His family assumed that he, too, would become a Presbyterian minister, but Hollandsworth, writing in the November, 1985 issue of Texas Monthly, wrote that he “could not help but be repelled by church ways.”.

From an early age Hollandsworth became fascinated with the North Texas State Hospital, an in-patient mental health facility owned by the State of Texas, located in Wichita Falls. Writing in Texas Monthly, Hollandsworth wrote that “I didn’t truly understand where I was from until I stepped inside the gates of the local state hospital.” “For reasons I couldn’t then explain," he wrote, "I kept returning to the hospital.” Hollandsworth wrote in Texas Monthly that he went into journalism because he loved visiting the local state hospital:

“Years later, while I was giving a speech to a college class, I was asked why I went into journalism. I suddenly blurted out, “I think it all started when I went out to the state hospital... I was captivated by the patients and tried to fathom what it felt like to be swept away by madness.”

In 1989 Hollandsworth married Peggy Ruth Pepper. In 1995 he remarried to Shannon L. Bandy. He has a stepdaughter and a daughter with wife Shannon.

Education

Hollandsworth graduated in 1979 with a B.A. in English from Texas Christian University.

Literary career

Hollandsworth has worked as a reporter and columnist for newspapers in Dallas, Texas. In 1981 he worked as a sports reporter for The Dallas Times-Herald.

Hollandsworth joined Texas Monthly magazine in 1989. He has also has worked as a television producer and documentary filmmaker.

Author

The Midnight Assassin

In January, 2003, a book by Hollandsworth entitled "The Midnight Assassin," about the man said to be the first serial killer in American history, was purchased for a "significant" six figures by HarperCollins. Publisher's Weekly, in reporting about the book sale, stated that the Texxas killer was "so notorious in his day that when Jack the Ripper terrorized London, it was believed he might have moved there." Hollandsworth, Publisher's Weekly reported, believed the possible killer was a member of high-society, "protected by the local establishment." However, the book is "unavailable" and has not been published as of January, 2011."

Journalist

Hollandsworth’s articles in Texas Monthly have launced a number of film and television projects including the CBS telepic Suburban Madness,, and The Goree Girls, a film starring Jennifer Aniston in her first singing role. The movie, set in the 1940s, tells the story of several women in a Texas prison who form a country-western band and became famous.

Awards

Hollandsworth has received the following journalism awards:

The 2010 National Magazine Award for Feature Writing.
A National Headliners Award.
The City and Regional Magazine gold award for feature writing.
The Texas Institute of Letters O. Henry award for magazine writing.
The Charles Green award for outstanding magazine writing in Texas.

Hollandsworth has been a finalist four times for the National Magazine Awards. His work has been included in such publications as Best American Crime Writing and Best American Magazine Writing.

Controversy

In their 1999 book, "West Texas: a Portrait of Its People and Their Raw and Wondrous Land," by Mike Cochran, John Lumpkin, and Ron Heflin, the authors report Hollandsworth's criticism of Wichita Falls: "Hollandsworth,“ they wrote, "railed about overweight topless dancers and the effects of the heat.” Writing about Wichita Falls, Hollandsworth wrote that "Your vision blurs and your legs start quivering like dying fish on hooks."

Carroll Wilson, the editor of Wichita Falls newspaper, the Times Record News, was critical of Hollandsworth, writing:

"Of course, it's hot here, and that's the way we like it, us and 103,000 other souls who believe there's more to a city than interminable traffic tie-ups, indefatigable drug dealers and insufferably smug magazine editors."