Max McCoy
@maxmccoy.com
Author, journalist, storyteller. Wrote some books. Won some awards. Columnist for @kansasreflector.com Views are my own.
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
As a nation, we face a decisive moment. Trust the journalists who witness tyranny at street level. • Kansas Reflector
Amid the stream of coverage of state-sponsored violence you may have missed the stories of the journalists arrested, detained or roughed up.
kansasreflector.com
February 1, 2026 at 5:49 PM
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
My friend George Frazier and Dr. Laura Murphy, director of the Center for Kansas Studies, dig into the "Kansas Day" cake before my talk last night at Washburn University. Thanks to everyone who turned out!
January 30, 2026 at 7:10 PM
My friend George Frazier and Dr. Laura Murphy, director of the Center for Kansas Studies, dig into the "Kansas Day" cake before my talk last night at Washburn University. Thanks to everyone who turned out!
Talkin' about sex radicals!
January 27, 2026 at 11:26 PM
Talkin' about sex radicals!
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
Why is it so hard to say goodbye to an old car? Because of the miles lived. • Kansas Reflector
I know the Jeep was not a living thing, but an object. Yet those two round headlights reminded me so much of a horse it was easy to forget.
kansasreflector.com
January 25, 2026 at 6:14 PM
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
Cake and refreshments. I'm so there.
January 20, 2026 at 6:55 AM
Cake and refreshments. I'm so there.
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
We’re all living a psychological experiment. Except the shocks and cries of pain are real. • Kansas Reflector
Much of the daylight between what Kansans want and what we get is because of historic GOP majorities in the Kansas House and Senate.
kansasreflector.com
January 18, 2026 at 6:50 PM
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
Nearly a week behind. But here's my @kansasreflector.com column from Jan. 11.
ICE agents shouldn’t troll courtrooms. A Kansas judge was right to object. • Kansas Reflector
What happened after a judge expressed displeasure with ICE agents in her municipal courtroom was yet another sign democracy is fraying.
kansasreflector.com
January 17, 2026 at 8:15 PM
Nearly a week behind. But here's my @kansasreflector.com column from Jan. 11.
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
In coaxing the Chiefs across the state line, Kansas makes a reckless gamble. Let’s call time out. • Kansas Reflector
The Kansas City Chiefs' proposed move follows a recent Kansas trend of abandoning caution and reaching for shiny objects.
kansasreflector.com
January 4, 2026 at 6:34 PM
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
The @kansasreflector.com has listed its most-read columns, by page views, for 2025. I'm pleased to note that, for the second year in a row, I made the very top of the list. Thank you, readers.
These 67 Kansas opinion columns opened eyes and hearts throughout one rugged 2025 • Kansas Reflector
The opinion coverage in Kansas Reflector takes a proverbial village to create. We're proud to highlight their work today.
kansasreflector.com
January 1, 2026 at 2:55 AM
The @kansasreflector.com has listed its most-read columns, by page views, for 2025. I'm pleased to note that, for the second year in a row, I made the very top of the list. Thank you, readers.
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
A forthcoming book describes boom and bust in Wichita and blustery cycles of economic bravado. • Kansas Reflector
Ask Chase Billingham for his interpretation of the most famous poem ever written about downtown Wichita, and he will describe the eye of a political and cultural vortex that has rippled through Americ...
kansasreflector.com
December 21, 2025 at 5:48 PM
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
Think the FIFA ‘peace prize’ was laughably absurd? It was, but the joke’s on us. • Kansas Reflector
If you were appalled by the spectacle of Donald Trump clumsily accepting a peace trophy that looks like a prop from “Night of the Living Dead,” then brace yourself.
kansasreflector.com
December 14, 2025 at 6:48 PM
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
American soldiers have long faced unlawful orders. They need courage and our support to resist. • Kansas Reflector
The question of resisting illegal orders becomes a flash point in American politics every generation or so.
kansasreflector.com
December 7, 2025 at 7:08 PM
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
A citizen reporter strayed onto a police gun range. Cops sought a warrant for his online newspaper. • Kansas Reflector
Jarom Smith is being investigated for criminal trespass and authorities have obtained a search warrant for his outlet's Facebook account
kansasreflector.com
November 30, 2025 at 6:10 PM
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
Bonus photos! Read my @kansasreflector.com column today about this citizen journalist and the search warrant for his digital newspaper.
November 30, 2025 at 6:09 PM
Bonus photos! Read my @kansasreflector.com column today about this citizen journalist and the search warrant for his digital newspaper.
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
In 1943 Norman Rockwell painted democracy’s portrait. An editor from Kansas helped make it possible. • Kansas Reflector
When the Saturday Evening Post published an offensive antisemitic article in 1942, the furor threatened to sink the magazine. The Post's editor and much of the staff were sacked and a young former Kan...
kansasreflector.com
November 23, 2025 at 6:11 PM
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
He wanted to build mom a grocery store. Now he’s indicted, and all we’re left is political satire. • Kansas Reflector
The grocery store would be a work of art, a place — no, a destination! — that would draw people from all over just to say they shopped there.
kansasreflector.com
November 16, 2025 at 10:40 PM
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
At home in Kansas, an afternoon in the sun during the strangeness of days • Kansas Reflector
It’s an afternoon in early November and 65 degrees. There is no wind and the atmosphere is so clear it seems distilled by late fall.
kansasreflector.com
November 9, 2025 at 6:45 PM
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
Hoping Kansas will get ‘advanced’ nuclear energy? Careful what you wish for in the Age of Damocles. • Kansas Reflector
Those vying to bring TerraPower jobs to their communities might want to consider the safety and security risks.
kansasreflector.com
November 2, 2025 at 6:04 PM
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
A Kansas man ‘married’ a ghost in 1927. They did not live happily ever after. • Kansas Reflector
A Kansas farmer was in love with “Sarah,” the ghost of a girl he had known in his youth back in Ohio, and he even married her.
kansasreflector.com
October 26, 2025 at 5:44 PM
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
The TSA video blaming Democrats for the shutdown? This authoritarian baggage needs checked. • Kansas Reflector
Air travel was already bad enough. But now comes Kristi Noem with a 30-second video blaming the current government shutdown on the Democrats, adding an Orwellian overtone to our collective trial by ai...
kansasreflector.com
October 19, 2025 at 4:54 PM
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
The work of Kansas artist Blackbear Bosin straddled rivers — and worlds • Kansas Reflector
“The Keeper of the Plains” is Blackbear Bosin’s 44-foot steel sculpture of a Native American, hands lifted to the heavens. It is installed on a rocky plinth above the confluence of the Arkansas and Li...
kansasreflector.com
October 12, 2025 at 10:19 PM
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
A Carnegie library opened in 1914 is still a lifeline for this rural Kansas town. With no popups. • Kansas Reflector
I’ve come to Peabody to visit the birthplace of the first free library in Kansas. What better place than a civic temple to fact?
kansasreflector.com
October 5, 2025 at 10:25 PM
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
"McCoy will also have a new book, tentatively titled “God’s Misfits.”
With Plainspoken approach, University Press of Kansas pursues regional audience — and writers • Kansas Reflector
Plainspoken Books is is really interested in telling authentic Midwest stories and getting them in front of national a national readership.
kansasreflector.com
September 29, 2025 at 4:02 PM
"McCoy will also have a new book, tentatively titled “God’s Misfits.”
My @kansasreflector.com column today.
We’re all afraid of political violence and retribution. But don’t be drawn into remaining silent. • Kansas Reflector
We have arrived in a new country with unexpected urgency, accompanied by political violence and pressure on free speech.
kansasreflector.com
September 28, 2025 at 6:16 PM
My @kansasreflector.com column today.