Kristen Steenbeeke

New York

formerly poet @iowawriterswksp | currently poet laureate of hell | work in @electriclit @catapult @tagvvrk | she/her | edit/sometimes write @texasmonthly

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Articles

Meet the Talking Raven Taking Austin and Social Media by Storm

Jan 3, 2025 | texasmonthly.com | Kristen Steenbeeke

WHO: A talking raven. WHAT: That raven’s unlikely friendship with an Austin barista. WHY IT’S SO GREAT: This raven is no “grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore,” as Edgar Allan Poe wrote—in fact, it’s been a delightful presence for downtown Austin workers of late. When I meet Jonathan Harris outside the downtown cafe where he works, he’s holding a bright orange whistle and a clicker. These are the tools he uses to beckon his friend, a juvenile raven he simply calls the Bird.
Burned Out on the News? Watch These Texas Critters Frolic Instead

Nov 14, 2024 | texasmonthly.com | Kristen Steenbeeke |Rose Cahalan

Moo Deng this, Moo Deng that. Texas has its own celebrity pygmy hippo now, not to mention many live video streams of animals that aren’t asleep when we’re all awake. I write this as I stare into the night vision Moo Deng live stream, where a spider has taken up residence on the camera lens at two in the morning Thai time.
‘A Natural History of Empty Lots’ Is an Ode to Abandoned Places

Sep 23, 2024 | texasmonthly.com | Kristen Steenbeeke |Rose Cahalan

Christopher Brown has urged me to take a long and meandering walk. Or, at least, his new book, A Natural History of Empty Lots, has inspired one. Sadly, the empty lots I find in my East Austin neighborhood, unlike his, seem not to have been empty for long. One, where it appears a house used to be and will again be soon, contains evidence of humans but hasn’t yet been taken over by plants and animals, as have many of the places Brown describes.
An Encyclopedia of Weird Texas Town Names

Sep 9, 2024 | texasmonthly.com | Kristen Steenbeeke |Rose Cahalan

Perhaps through a combination of sheer size and pioneer spirit, Texas, of all the states, seems to feature the highest concentration of truly absurd town names. About a year ago, I made a categorized list of some of the best, with food (Oatmeal), states of mind (Uncertain), concepts (Utopia), things (Telephone), names of other cities and countries (Scotland), phrases (Jot ’Em Down), and, most important, guns (Cut and Shoot) and guys (Tom Bean) as the main groupings.
Praise Be! Texas Poetry Just Got Funded

Aug 13, 2024 | texasmonthly.com | Kristen Steenbeeke

WHO: Texas’s 2024 poet laureate, Amanda Johnston. WHAT: The Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship for Johnston’s project, Praisesong for the People: Poems Celebrating the Heart and Soul of Texas. WHY IT’S SO GREAT: Poetry is often confined to the hallowed halls of academia, and Johnston, our state’s newest poet laureate, wants to expand its reach to the halls where most Texans experience life.
A Houston Zoo Elephant Just Got the First Dose of a Lifesaving New Vaccine

Jun 21, 2024 | texasmonthly.com | Kristen Steenbeeke |Rose Cahalan

WHO: Paul Ling, a professor at Baylor College of Medicine, along with the veterinary and elephant care teams at the Houston Zoo.  WHAT: A new vaccine for elephant endotheliotropic herpes virus (EEHV), a devastating viral disease that can swiftly kill young elephants, often just one to five days after symptoms start showing.
A Deadly Virus Was Killing Elephants, So Texas Scientists Created a Vaccine

Jun 21, 2024 | dfwliving.com | Kristen Steenbeeke

WHO: Paul Ling, a professor at Baylor College of Medicine, along with the veterinary and elephant care teams at the Houston Zoo.
How a Little Book Managed to Encompass an Enormous State

Apr 8, 2024 | texasmonthly.com | Kristen Steenbeeke

In her brief introduction to Texas, Being, poet and Trinity University professor Jenny Browne writes, “Good poems are always about more than one thing.” This multiplicity also applies to Texas as a state. It’s a place often pigeonholed by outsiders as homogenous: they might believe it’s all dust and desert, that every citizen is a conservative Republican, that every Texan has been to a rodeo.
A Q&A With Actor Jensen Ackles’s Biggest Fan: My Mom

Apr 1, 2024 | texasmonthly.com | Kristen Steenbeeke

Not a lot of people know Jensen Ackles by name. They might recognize him on TV; say, “Oh, it’s that one guy. From that one thing.” But one fact of my life for the past thirteen years is that I know his favorite song and his children’s names and his political affiliation, courtesy of my sixty-something mom, who runs an Instagram account dedicated to him that has, as of publication, 143,000 followers. She’s an expert on Ackles, on the show Supernatural, and on the nuances of online fandom.
Teacup Javelinas Are Texas’s Adorable (and Feisty) New Pet Trend

Apr 1, 2024 | texasmonthly.com | Kristen Steenbeeke |Rose Cahalan

Aubrey Greener remembers seeing her first javelinas while hiking in Big Bend National Park ten years ago. She’d just rounded a corner on the Mule Ears Trail when she came face-to-face with a family of the furry gray ungulates—a mother and two babies, called “reds” because of their reddish fur when they’re young. Greener inadvertently shrieked so loudly (with joy) that she scared them away, but after that day, she couldn’t stop thinking about how adorable the piglike young were.