“Skip” Hollandsworth co-wrote the Richard Linklater movie Bernie, starring Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey and Shirley MacLaine. The film is based on Hollandsworth’s 1998 article in Texas Monthly, titled, “Midnight in the Garden of East Texas,” which depicts the true story of the murder of an 82-year old woman, Marjorie Nugent, in Carthage, Texas, by her 39-year-old companion, Bernhardt “Bernie” Tiede. Watch a screening of the movie and participate in a Q&A session with the screenwriter.

Before joining the Texas Monthly staff, in 1989, executive editor Skip Hollandsworth worked as a reporter and columnist in Dallas and as a television producer and documentary filmmaker. During his tenure with the magazine, he has received several journalism awards, including a National Headliners Award, the national John Hancock Award for Excellence in Business and Financial Journalism, the City and Regional Magazine gold award for feature writing, and the Texas Institute of Letters O. Henry Award for magazine writing.

He has been a finalist four times for a National Magazine Award, the magazine industry’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize, and in 2010 he won the National Magazine Award in feature writing for “Still Life,” his story about a young man who, after suffering a crippling football injury in high school, spent the next 33 years in his bedroom, unable to move. The 2011 movie Bernie, which Hollandsworth co-wrote with Richard Linklater, is based on his January 1998 story, “Midnight in the Garden of East Texas.”