• Home
  • popular
  • Events
  • Submit New Event
  • Subscribe
  • About
  • News
  • Restaurants + Bars
  • City Life
  • Entertainment
  • Travel
  • Real Estate
  • Arts
  • Society
  • Home + Design
  • Fashion + Beauty
  • Innovation
  • Sports
  • Charity Guide
  • children
  • education
  • health
  • veterans
  • SOCIAL SERVICES
  • ARTS + CULTURE
  • animals
  • lgbtq
  • New Charity
  • Series
  • Delivery Limited
  • DTX Giveaway 2012
  • DTX Ski Magic
  • dtx woodford reserve manhattans
  • Your Home in the Sky
  • DTX Best of 2013
  • DTX Trailblazers
  • Tastemakers Dallas 2017
  • Healthy Perspectives
  • Neighborhood Eats 2015
  • The Art of Making Whiskey
  • DTX International Film Festival
  • DTX Tatum Brown
  • Tastemaker Awards 2016 Dallas
  • DTX McCurley 2014
  • DTX Cars in Lifestyle
  • DTX Beyond presents Party Perfect
  • DTX Texas Health Resources
  • DART 2018
  • Alexan Central
  • State Fair 2018
  • Formula 1 Giveaway
  • Zatar
  • CityLine
  • Vision Veritas
  • Okay to Say
  • Hearts on the Trinity
  • DFW Auto Show 2015
  • Northpark 50
  • Anteks Curated
  • Red Bull Cliff Diving
  • Maggie Louise Confections Dallas
  • Gaia
  • Red Bull Global Rally Cross
  • NorthPark Holiday 2015
  • Ethan's View Dallas
  • DTX City Centre 2013
  • Galleria Dallas
  • Briggs Freeman Sotheby's International Realty Luxury Homes in Dallas Texas
  • DTX Island Time
  • Simpson Property Group SkyHouse
  • DIFFA
  • Lotus Shop
  • Holiday Pop Up Shop Dallas
  • Clothes Circuit
  • DTX Tastemakers 2014
  • Elite Dental
  • Elan City Lights
  • Dallas Charity Guide
  • DTX Music Scene 2013
  • One Arts Party at the Plaza
  • J.R. Ewing
  • AMLI Design District Vibrant Living
  • Crest at Oak Park
  • Braun Enterprises Dallas
  • NorthPark
  • Victory Park
  • DTX Common Desk
  • DTX Osborne Advisors
  • DTX Comforts of Home 2012
  • DFW Showcase Tour of Homes
  • DTX Neighborhood Eats
  • DTX Comforts of Home 2013
  • DTX Auto Awards
  • Cottonwood Art Festival 2017
  • Nasher Store
  • Guardian of The Glenlivet
  • Zyn22
  • Dallas Rx
  • Yellow Rose Gala
  • Opendoor
  • DTX Sun and Ski
  • Crow Collection
  • DTX Tastes of the Season
  • Skye of Turtle Creek Dallas
  • Cottonwood Art Festival
  • DTX Charity Challenge
  • DTX Culture Motive
  • DTX Good Eats 2012
  • DTX_15Winks
  • St. Bernard Sports
  • Jose
  • DTX SMU 2014
  • DTX Up to Speed
  • st bernard
  • Ardan West Village
  • DTX New York Fashion Week spring 2016
  • Taste the Difference
  • Parktoberfest 2016
  • Bob's Steak and Chop House
  • DTX Smart Luxury
  • DTX Earth Day
  • DTX_Gaylord_Promoted_Series
  • IIDA Lavish
  • Huffhines Art Trails 2017
  • Red Bull Flying Bach Dallas
  • Y+A Real Estate
  • Beauty Basics
  • DTX Pet of the Week
  • Long Cove
  • Charity Challenge 2014
  • Legacy West
  • Wildflower
  • Stillwater Capital
  • Tulum
  • DTX Texas Traveler
  • Dallas DART
  • Soldiers' Angels
  • Alexan Riveredge
  • Ebby Halliday Realtors
  • Zephyr Gin
  • Sixty Five Hundred Scene
  • Christy Berry
  • Entertainment Destination
  • Dallas Art Fair 2015
  • St. Bernard Sports Duck Head
  • Jameson DTX
  • Alara Uptown Dallas
  • Cottonwood Art Festival fall 2017
  • DTX Tastemakers 2015
  • Cottonwood Arts Festival
  • The Taylor
  • Decks in the Park
  • Alexan Henderson
  • Gallery at Turtle Creek
  • Omni Hotel DTX
  • Red on the Runway
  • Whole Foods Dallas 2018
  • Artizone Essential Eats
  • Galleria Dallas Runway Revue
  • State Fair 2016 Promoted
  • Trigger's Toys Ultimate Cocktail Experience
  • Dean's Texas Cuisine
  • Real Weddings Dallas
  • Real Housewives of Dallas
  • Jan Barboglio
  • Wildflower Arts and Music Festival
  • Hearts for Hounds
  • Okay to Say Dallas
  • Indochino Dallas
  • Old Forester Dallas
  • Dallas Apartment Locators
  • Dallas Summer Musicals
  • PSW Real Estate Dallas
  • Paintzen
  • DTX Dave Perry-Miller
  • DTX Reliant
  • Get in the Spirit
  • Bachendorf's
  • Holiday Wonder
  • Village on the Parkway
  • City Lifestyle
  • opportunity knox villa-o restaurant
  • Nasher Summer Sale
  • Simpson Property Group
  • Holiday Gift Guide 2017 Dallas
  • Carlisle & Vine
  • DTX New Beginnings
  • Get in the Game
  • Red Bull Air Race
  • Dallas DanceFest
  • 2015 Dallas Stylemaker
  • Youth With Faces
  • Energy Ogre
  • DTX Renewable You
  • Galleria Dallas Decadence
  • Bella MD
  • Tractorbeam
  • Young Texans Against Cancer
  • Fresh Start Dallas
  • Dallas Farmers Market
  • Soldier's Angels Dallas
  • Shipt
  • Elite Dental
  • Texas Restaurant Association 2017
  • State Fair 2017
  • Scottish Rite
  • Brooklyn Brewery
  • DTX_Stylemakers
  • Alexan Crossings
  • Ascent Victory Park
  • Top Texans Under 30 Dallas
  • Discover Downtown Dallas
  • San Luis Resort Dallas
  • Greystar The Collection
  • FIG Finale
  • Greystar M Line Tower
  • Lincoln Motor Company
  • The Shelby
  • Jonathan Goldwater Events
  • Windrose Tower
  • Gift Guide 2016
  • State Fair of Texas 2016
  • Choctaw Dallas
  • TodayTix Dallas promoted
  • Whole Foods
  • Unbranded 2014
  • Frisco Square
  • Unbranded 2016
  • Circuit of the Americas 2018
  • The Katy
  • Snap Kitchen
  • Partners Card
  • Omni Hotels Dallas
  • Landmark on Lovers
  • Harwood Herd
  • Galveston.com Dallas
  • Holiday Happenings Dallas 2018
  • TenantBase
  • Cottonwood Art Festival 2018
  • Hawkins-Welwood Homes
  • The Inner Circle Dallas
  • Eating in Season Dallas
  • ATTPAC Behind the Curtain
  • TodayTix Dallas
  • The Alexan
  • Toyota Music Factory
  • Nosh Box Eatery
  • Wildflower 2018
  • Society Style Dallas 2018
  • Texas Scottish Rite Hospital 2018
  • 5 Mockingbird
  • 4110 Fairmount
  • Visit Taos
  • Allegro Addison
  • Dallas Tastemakers 2018
  • The Village apartments
  • City of Burleson Dallas

    Book Report

    Dallas confessions of a New York Times best-selling author

    Anna Fialho Byers
    Jun 13, 2016 | 12:00 pm
    Writer Sarah Hepola
    Sarah Hepola's memoir, Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget, is out in paperback this month.
    Photo by Zan Keith

    In her New York Times best-selling memoir, Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget, Sarah Hepola writes a harrowing tale of her battle with alcoholism, which, as the title indicates, more often than not led her to drink to the point of blacking out.

    Hepola’s story is more than the typical tale of redemption, though. It’s a brutally honest — and, at times, outright funny — look at one woman’s struggle to understand her inner self and become the person she knew she could be, without the liquid courage of alcohol.

    In advance of her June 14 appearance at Wild Detectives to chat about Blackout (which is being released in paperback this month), we asked Hepola about her sobriety, what she loves most about Dallas, and what she has planned next.

    CultureMap: What led you to write Blackout?

    Sarah Hepola: I was hell-bent on accomplishing something in sobriety I had not done in my drinking life. I’d wanted to write a book as long as I’ve wanted to do anything. I was so scared and broken after I quit that it took about six months to realize this was an opportunity.

    They say write what you know. I didn’t know anything better than drinking. I had an unofficial Ph.D.

    CM: You’ve talked about how you drank to deal with issues like body-consciousness, self-doubt, and the need to be liked. Do you still struggle with those issues?

    SH: Always and forever I will deal with those issues. I don’t know many people who don’t. The good part about quitting drinking is that when you take away the anesthesia, you can start addressing the original wound.

    Why am I so mixed up about my body? What could I do about that? You leave the land of numbness and enter the world of action. That said, I’m reminded every day why I used to drink. Oh yeah, dealing with life on its own terms is hard.

    CM: What do you miss most about drinking?

    SH: The easy camaraderie. The promise of release at the end of the day. The abandon. There’s not one thing I miss. I miss a lot, but the mental obsession goes away.

    It’s like when you miss the good parts of an old fling: Ohhh, man, that was so amazing. And then you start to remember the fights, the tears, the disasters. Eh, never mind.

    CM: You’ve also mentioned that you wrote well when you were drinking. Did you have to learn to write sober?

    SH: Definitely. What drinking did for me — not simply in writing, but in sex, and in bar-room conversations — was to turn down the volume on my own self-doubt. The disinhibiting qualities of booze can be very powerful for someone as inhibited as me. So in every one of those categories, I had to learn a more sustainable path to reducing my anxiety and doubt.

    These days, I write in bed, which is a terrible habit, but it makes me feel safe. I have to find that place where I feel like no one is watching, or I’ll get freaked out.

    CM: In some ways, you are where you are in your career — i.e., a New York Times best-selling author — because of your drinking. If you had it to do over again, what would you change?

    SH: I would wear better clothes.

    CM: Would you advise someone to become a writer?

    SH: Writing isn’t a career you pursue because someone advised you to do it. It’s a career you pursue because you feel in your bones you need to it. Financially, it’s a bad decision, like investing in mimeograph machines. It makes me laugh when someone’s flailing in their job and says: I should just write a book. It’s a bit like saying: I should just win the lottery.

    I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but I’m saying don’t count on it. However, if you know the risks, and you still want to pursue the writing life, it can reward you in many other ways. I feel enormously grateful to be doing something I love, even if it’s something I occasionally hate.

    CM: What’s next? Are you planning another book?

    SH: Yes. After this paperback tour ends, I’m devoting myself to a new book, which I think will be a collection of essays about my relationships with men. I say “I think,” because you never know what you’re going to get until you sit down and write the thing.

    It’s like when you spitball an outline for English class, and then you actually sit down to write the essay and realize, wait, this was all wrong.

    CM: What inspires you?

    SH: I keep a list on my desktop of people whose work inspires me. Here’s a random sampling: Joan Didion, Marc Maron, Kristen Wiig, Rhett Miller, Paul Thomas Anderson. Each of those people has some quality I would like for myself. And they’re just in it.

    I also listen to music a lot, although it tends to be the same album over and over and over again. I think I have a touch of the OCD, and listening to the same songs on repeat soothes me somehow.

    Also, I’m really inspired by the work of other writers. Inspired, and envious, but that’s pretty good fuel to get moving. When I read Cheryl Strayed’s “Dear Sugar” columns, I felt like the bar had been raised for personal writing online. Meghan Daum’s The Unspeakable made me want to be observe more closely. Leslie Jamison’s The Empathy Exams made me want to be a better person.

    Ta-Nahesi Coates blew it out of the water with Between the World and Me. My friend Pam Colloff writes these stories for Texas Monthly that get at the human experience in a profound way. Oh, and David Foster Wallace. The *other* DFW. My hero.

    CM: Why did you move back to Dallas?

    SH: I knew I had to get out of New York, and for years I’d had these fantasies about Austin, where I lived in my 20s. But when I actually visited Austin, I was like: Oooh, this is expensive and crowded.

    Dallas was the shift I needed. My rent was a third of what I paid in New York, and plus, my family is here, and I liked being close to them again. I had been home to visit a few months before, and we all took this walk near the lake, where my parents live, and I was like: Oh, wow, I’m home.

    CM: Do you like being back here?

    SH: Some days. Other days, I feel like I don’t belong. Dallas is a completely underrated town in terms of culture, affordability, convenience, and diversity. Will I live here for the rest of my life? I doubt it. But I’m proud to be from this place, and to live here now.

    CM: How do you feel that Dallas has changed since you lived here before?

    SH: It’s such a better city. Look at the development of the last few years: the Arts District, Klyde Warren Park. There is a park in downtown Dallas, and people actually go to it!

    I end up having half my business meetings and online dates on Lower Greenville, which basically looks like Brooklyn in 2008. Cool coffee shops, food trucks, macarons, upscale chocolate, artisanal whatever. And Brooklyn in 2008 was a great place to be.

    CM: What do you like to do in Dallas? Any favorite haunts?

    SH: Oak Cliff is amazing. I love every restaurant in Bishop Arts. The first time I stepped into the Wild Detectives bookstore, I almost cried. Dallas has needed a place like that for so long. I’m honestly glad I don’t live any closer to Emporium Pies, because I don’t need any more proximity to their Cloud 9 pie, which is insane.

    But most of my haunts are near where I live in East Dallas. I think my favorite restaurant in the city might be Sissy’s on Henderson. That combination of great Southern cooking in an impeccable setting is so Dallas to me.

    When I’m totally stressed or in the mood to eat my feelings, I go to Matt’s El Rancho. Hey, there’s a new slogan for them: The home of Tex-Mex, and emotional eating.

    qainterviewbooks
    news/arts

    most read posts

    Dallas chef nominated for James Beard award parts ways with restaurant

    Sweet Paris crepe chain folds in another Dallas location in Addison

    Dallas restaurants heat up new summer menus in this roundup of news

    Season Announcement

    Big spenders + bigger voices fill Lyric Stage's 2025-26 Dallas season

    Lindsey Wilson
    Jun 18, 2025 | 12:29 pm
    Rocky Horror Picture Show with Tim Curry
    The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
    undefined

    For its 2025-26 season, Lyric Stage is pairing a sweet transvestite with Civil War-era sisters, a dance hall hostess with harmonizing ghosts, and a whole bunch of divas with their much-deserved spotlight.

    Now in its 32nd season, the nonprofit Lyric Stage is dedicated to the development and preservation of musicals, having produced more than 125 productions, which include 21 world-premiere musicals and two Off-Broadway shows.

    Under the helm of newish artistic directors Tricia Guenther and Scott Guenther, four of its current shows will take place in its Lyric Studio Space near the Trinity River, with one at Moody Performance Hall in the Dallas Arts District.

    First up (and just in time for Halloween) is The Rocky Horror Show — note the missing "Picture." This is the stage version on which the cult classic movie was later based, but don't worry, audiences are still encouraged to shout at the performers and throw toilet paper and other props.

    Sweethearts Brad and Janet, stuck with a flat tire during a storm, discover the eerie mansion of Dr. Frank-N-Furter. As their innocence is lost, Brad and Janet meet a houseful of wild characters, including a rocking biker and a creepy butler. Through elaborate dances and rock songs, Frank-N-Furter unveils his latest creation: a muscular man named “Rocky.” It runs October 10-26, 2025 at Lyric Stage Studio and is not family-friendly.

    For the holiday season, Forever Plaid - Plaid Tidings brings Francis, Jinx, Smudge, and Sparky back to Earth on the orders of Rosemary Clooney to put a little harmony into a discordant world.

    Stewart Ross' musical is sprinkled with Christmas offerings and audience favorites, like the riotous three-minute-and-eleven-second version of The Ed Sullivan Show, this time, featuring the Rockettes, the Chipmunks, and The Vienna Boys Choir. It runs December 5-21, 2025, at Lyric Stage Studio.

    For one night only, the Dallas Divas return just in time for Valentine’s Day.

    Showcasing some of the most talented voices in Dallas, singing songs ranging from Broadway to pop, the performance is a Lyric Stage tradition. It is February 11, 2026, at Moody Performance Hall.

    Inspired by Federico Fellini’s Night of Cabiria, Sweet Charity explores the turbulent love life of Charity Hope Valentine, a hopelessly romantic but comically unfortunate dance hall hostess in New York City.

    With a tuneful, groovy, mid-1960s score by Cy Coleman, sparkling lyrics by Dorothy Fields, and a hilarious book by Neil Simon, Sweet Charity captures all the energy, humor, and heartbreak of Life in the Big City for an unfortunate but irrepressible optimist. The production is the original 1966 Broadway (not the movie version) with such hit songs as “Big Spender,” “If My Friends Could See Me Now,” “I’m a Brass Band,” and “Baby, Dream Your Dream.” It runs April 17-May 3, 2026, at Lyric Stage Studio.

    Closing out the season is Louisa May Alcott's timeless Little Women, with a book by Allan Knee, lyrics by Mindi Dickstein, and music by Jason Howland.

    The musical follows the adventures of sisters Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy March. Jo is trying to sell her stories for publication, but the publishers are not interested in a woman's creativity. Her friend, Professor Bhaer, tells her that she has to do better and write more from herself. Begrudgingly taking this advice, Jo weaves the story of herself and her sisters and their experience growing up in Civil War America. It runs July 17-August 2, 2026, at Lyric Stage Studio.

    Season tickets, which range from $40-$60, are available beginning July 1. Lyric Stage is located at 1170 Quaker St. in Dallas.

    dallas divasfederico felliniforever plaidlittle womenlyric stagemoody performance hallnight of cabiriarockettesrocky horror showsweet charitysweet transvestitetheatertime warpvienna boys choirmusical theatremusicals
    news/arts
    Loading...