S. Holland Murphy

United States

Associate Editor at D Magazine

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Articles

This Old Story About Madonna Moving to Dallas Goes So Hard

1 month ago | dmagazine.com | S. Holland Murphy

In April of 1986, D Magazine readers ate up the scoop of the century: a cover story titled “Madonna Is Moving to Dallas.” Inside, readers learned that the Material Girl had moved with hubby Sean Penn to East Dallas to scout locations for a Desperately Seeking Susan sequel tentatively titled Sun Belt Diva.
How to Get Ahead in Advertising-At *D Magazine*

2 months ago | dmagazine.com | S. Holland Murphy

John Hall interviewed for a sales position at D Magazine in the summer of 1975. After his meeting, sales manager Bernie Kraft and publisher Wick Allison shook the young man’s hand, gave him the job, and walked him outside. They approached a Toyota Celica clunker covered in dents. Allison stopped short. “That’s not your car,” Allison said matter-of-factly. “Yeah, it is,” Hall said. He wasn’t lying. Hall’s ex-wife had kept the nice ride in their recent divorce; he’d gotten the beater.
How D Magazine Captured Early Online Dating in Dallas

Feb 10, 2025 | dmagazine.com | S. Holland Murphy

Twenty years ago, D Magazine delved into the meat market on the World Wide Web with the February 2005 cover story, “Point. Click. Date.” The business of internet hookups was by then well established: 61 million singles were looking for romance “with computer processors playing matchmaker,” and Richardson-based Match.com was the biggest name in the game, claiming almost a quarter of those users.
How Romance Novels Can Revive Your Love For Reading

Feb 6, 2025 | dmagazine.com | S. Holland Murphy

It all started for me innocently enough. I was just a curious kitten following a strand of yarn. It was the summer of 2022, and I was working my way through my Sunday New York Times when I noticed that an author named Colleen Hoover held not one, not two, but five of the top 10 spots on the paperback fiction bestseller list.
*D Magazine*’s Dance With the Personal Ad Fad

Jan 22, 2025 | dmagazine.com | S. Holland Murphy

In February 1986, the D Magazine staff slipped into the sizzling hot tub of the personal ad fad with “Chances Are… .” But almost as soon as the operation started churning, it fizzled, coming to a complete halt after only nine issues.
Once an Undercover Billy Bob’s Waitress, Now a Bespoke Funeral Director

Nov 14, 2024 | dmagazine.com | S. Holland Murphy

Nineteen years after Gloria Steinem went undercover as a Playboy Club bunny for Show Magazine, and 20 years before Elizabeth Gilbert would immortalize (and, somehow, glamorize) the dank New York dive Coyote Ugly Saloon for GQ, D Magazine editor Amy Cunningham went incognito to get a gig waitressing at a new Fort Worth dance hall billed as “the biggest honky-tonk in the world.” Read her March 1982 feature, “Billy Bob’s Honky-Tonk Angel,” today and you’ll feel the sticky grip of dried Lone Star...
The Death Positivity Movement Hits Dallas

Nov 14, 2024 | dmagazine.com | S. Holland Murphy

When the round-robin of introductions reaches Maggie Conlee, she greets the small group with that winkingly blasé tone perfected by Gen Z. “My name is Maggiiieee,” she begins, “and I’m here because I know a lot of dead peoplllle.” The delivery earns a few snickers from the group sipping iced lattes and eating Dr Pepper-peanut butter cake in Union Coffee’s second-floor lounge, but the 24-year-old’s nonchalance is, in a way, the purpose of the gathering.
The First Woman on *D Magazine*'s Editorial Staff is Full of Killer Stories

Oct 11, 2024 | sponsored.dmagazine.com | S. Holland Murphy

The intruder slipped into the D Magazine office unnoticed. After-work drinks were an evening ritual in 1976, and most of the staff had already split for the gin mill of the moment. Managing editor Gay Yellen and the art director, however, were still in the layout room, nailing down art for the next issue’s cover. Yellen felt a presence, and when she looked up, she saw a trembling man standing inside the doorway aiming a handgun in their direction. “He looked more scared than anything,” she says.
16 Descriptions of Dallas Celebrities That Will Make You Smile

Sep 11, 2024 | dmagazine.com | S. Holland Murphy

Dirk Nowitzki, the GOAT, 2011: Sean Berry “That shot—a one-legged fade-away jumper, often off the wrong foot, sometimes while turning around, occasionally from an angle that could end a friendly game of HORSE in fisticuffs—has probably ruined youth basketball for the next decade. In North Texas and beyond, kids everywhere are literally falling all over themselves, trying to emulate Nowitzki.
Searching Out D Magazine's Original Puzzle Maker

Sep 11, 2024 | dmagazine.com | S. Holland Murphy

The crossword puzzle printed in D Magazine’s debut issue was regrettable, to say the least. Unlike anything the average Dallasite had ever solved, it was full of trickery, wordplay, and—making it all the more impossible—British references. One clue: “Potter beside river for stickleback.” The answer: “Tiddler.” The reward for the first person to send in a correct solution was $50, not a bad prize in 1974. But instead of getting a mailbox full of answers, the nascent publication got angry letters.