Marfa for Beginners

A Whole Other Country is a new podcast from the award-winning Marfa Public Radio Studios. Back in the ‘90s, in an off-the-grid neighborhood in the mountains of Far West Texas, a wannabe vintner started his own Wild West nation. Reporter and host Zoe Kurland drives up the long, bumpy roads of the Davis Mountains to talk to a cast of neighbors and onlookers who watched the story of the standoff unfo...

You can donate to Marfa Public Radio on our website at marfapublicradio.org/donate .

Living in a small town in West Texas can feel magical. And part of that magic is how isolated we are: hours and hours down a desert highway from everything else. But when it comes to accessing reproductive healthcare, that remoteness can also be terrifying. In the Big Bend, the idea of “choice” was complicated long before Roe v. Wade was overturned. Out here, you can’t legally get an abortion — bu...

To close out this podcast, there’s someone we think you should meet– West Texas’s unofficial ambassador, Liz Rogers. Marfa can be a place that seems cool and aloof, a place that kind of feels like one of those crushes where the allure is that they don't like you back. But Liz is the exact opposite. In a place known for minimalism, Liz is maximalist, as epitomized by her annual birthday party. Ever...

Imagine if there was a community Facebook group for your entire city, where everyone posted all the time. Now imagine if your city was small enough to have no traffic lights, just a few busy intersections with stop and yield signs. Welcome to Marfa Group, a place where these realities collide - into one memorable Facebook thread. Produced by Sally Beauvais, Zoe Kurland and Elise Pepple.

You can donate to Grand Companions online, at grandcompanions.org .

Small towns come with a lot of drama. When you live in a place like Marfa, there are certain psychological realities specific to having zero degrees of separation between you and your neighbors. People know what’s going on in your life, and you know what’s going on in theirs. Even if they didn’t tell you. This proximity creates a unique reality of deep connection and insane paranoia. In this episo...

This week we’re featuring another podcast from another Marfan — one who beat us to the punch. David Gomez was Marfa’s first podcaster. His show What’s wrong with people? is an unfiltered look at daily life in Marfa. In this episode, we chat with David and hear a couple minutes of an episode that investigates whether a certain pair of celebrity sisters visited Marfa. Listen to David's podcast What'...

You can donate to the Marfa Food Pantry online, at marfafoodpantry.com .

As a visitor to Marfa, your days might fly by, but when you live here, time passes differently. Marfa is in the middle of the desert. If you stand anywhere and just look out, the land and enormous sky stretch out in every direction as far as the eye can see. The remoteness of it all can make time feel like it’s not passing here. It’s a palpable feeling that’s also so abstract, it's indescribable –...

You can make a donation to the Marfa Nutrition Center in person, at 101 N. Mesa Street.

As a tourist coming to Marfa, you might have certain romantic notions about this place, ideas about the magic of a small desert town. Sunsets, sound baths, epiphanies and photos in front of Prada Marfa. But what if you live inside of that fantasy every day? What if you’ve spent your entire life watching people take selfies in front of your firehouse, your clinic, your courthouse, witnessing them h...

You can make a donation to Marfa’s Volunteer Fire Department in person, at 110 E. Lincoln St., or mail it to PO Box 846 Marfa, TX, 79843.

This episode is about finding love in Marfa. Or trying to. People wonder what it’s like to date here. The truth is finding love in the middle of nowhere can feel like waiting for the rapture - impossible. Even having a crush on someone is a thrill when you live in a town of 2,000 people. Some people do find love out here– like magical, drive off into the sunset kind of love. But for the rest of us...

You can donate to the Marfa Public Library online, at marfapubliclibrary.org .

A lot of people call the journey to Marfa a pilgrimage. Tourists come from all over the world, driving hours through the desert to see places like Prada Marfa and Ballroom. Most notoriously, they come to see Donald Judd’s artwork at the Chinati Foundation. On their way to the foundation, visitors pass right by a lesser known pilgrimage site, in the backyard of Ester Sanchez. An apparition of the V...

What do you know about Marfa, Texas? Whether it’s Vogue magazine, The Simpsons , or I Love Dick , there’s a certain narrative about Marfa: the romantic art town in the middle of nowhere. But there’s more to Marfa than that. Marfa for Beginners is the audio guide to the Marfa you may not know: Virgin of Guadalupe sightings and limited Tinder options. A place where you can feel like a stranger in yo...