Texas Monthly is proud to announce that senior editor Aaron Parsley has received one of journalism’s highest honors. On Monday, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing for “Where the River Took Us,” a heartrending, first-person account of his family’s fight for survival during last year’s devastating Central Texas floods. This is the first time in Texas Monthly’s history that the Pulitzers have awarded the magazine’s work.
Aaron chronicled the early morning hours of July 4, when the Guadalupe River’s raging floodwaters engulfed his family’s home near the river, sweeping the structure and his family away. The harrowing account was one of the few stories to provide readers with an intimate understanding of the devastating experience of flood victims. It captivated millions of readers across the world and helped memorialize those lost in one of the country’s deadliest floods, including Aaron’s twenty-month-old nephew, Clay Parisher.
“The Pulitzer committee has recognized an element of this story that may not be obvious: Yes, this account was written under a tight deadline and despite the most trying personal circumstances, but it is also a remarkable piece of reporting,” said Ross McCammon, Texas Monthly’s editor in chief. “In a matter of hours, Aaron uncovered the singular experiences of family members wrenched from one another and thrown into a raging flood. He then braided those stories together to convey what a tragedy of this sort actually feels like. This is a deeply reported story of horror, courage, and love, and it is one of the finest magazine stories ever written.”
Aaron, who wrote the feature days after the flood, credits the work with helping him make sense of the disaster and its impact on his life and the lives of his loved ones.
“I am grateful to my family for trusting me and to everyone at Texas Monthly for offering their support, talent, and meticulous care during the process of writing, reporting, and all that goes into putting this story into the world,” he said. “It means everything to me, and I’m deeply proud to be a part of the Texas Monthly team.”
The feature was edited by McCammon and story director J.K. Nickell; reviewed by copy chief Marilyn Bailey and copy editor Amy Dorning; art directed by creative director Emily Kimbro and designed by design director Victoria Millner, with photo direction by Kayla Miracle, now associate photo editor; and fact-checked by Doyin Oyeniyi, now the research chief. Photographs by Jordan Vonderhaar accompany the feature.
Aaron’s story was one of more than twenty that Texas Monthly published in the days after the flood, an exhaustive staff-wide effort to document the experiences of those affected by the historic disaster. Texas Monthly has continued to report on the floods and their aftermath over the past ten months, with more reporting to come, including a follow-up cover story by Aaron in the upcoming June 2026 issue.
“Where the River Took Us” is a finalist for feature writing for the distinguished National Magazine Awards; the American Society of Magazine Editors will announce winners for those awards later this month. It was also named a finalist for excellence in narrative human-interest storytelling in the 73rd Scripps Howard Journalism Awards last week.
Monday’s Pulitzer Prize is the latest in a string of honors and achievements the editorial team has received this year. A two-part feature series copublished by Texas Monthly and the Food and Environment Reporting Network on the deadliest immigration-related disaster in U.S. history won prestigious George Polk and Overseas Press Club of America awards, as well as the MOLLY National Journalism Prize. The magazine has also received several other finalist nods for the National Magazine Awards; the American Society of Magazine Editors’ Awards for Design, Photography and Illustration; the National City & Regional Magazine Awards; and the Society of Publication Designers Awards. Winners for those competitions will be announced in the coming weeks.