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BACKWORDS blog explores the intersection between presence and history. The blog is a platform that honors the moment of encounter that any one person experiences—with art, literature, music, performance, or place. Often, reflections fit multiple categories—the opposite of a news program or style blog, BACKWORDS is not preoccupied with immediacy. An event does not need to be current to be relevant, nor does a memory need to be close to its origins to hold its potency.

Featured Posts

2020 and The One Where We All Try to Stay Sane

2020 and The One Where We All Try to Stay Sane

2020 and The One Where We All Try to Stay Sane

Tunnel Vision: Preparing to Hike the Pacific Crest Trail

Tunnel Vision: Preparing to Hike the Pacific Crest Trail

Tunnel Vision: Preparing to Hike the Pacific Crest Trail

Giverny, This Way

Giverny, This Way

Giverny, This Way

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays!

My First Foray Into The Wonderful Wallowas

My First Foray Into The Wonderful Wallowas

My First Foray Into The Wonderful Wallowas

Spice and Rain

Spice and Rain

Spice and Rain

Traveling with Less

Traveling with Less

Traveling with Less

Antibiotics and Balinese Dance, A Winning Combination

Antibiotics and Balinese Dance, A Winning Combination

Antibiotics and Balinese Dance, A Winning Combination

Let's Confuse Each Other In German: How I Turned 30 in Paris

Let's Confuse Each Other In German: How I Turned 30 in Paris

Let's Confuse Each Other In German: How I Turned 30 in Paris

Recent Posts

What Tony Hoagland Means to Me

What Tony Hoagland Means to Me

What Tony Hoagland Means to Me

Snow is a unique experience in Portland. Not the weather itself, but the reaction from the city and everyone in it. An inch or two can...

Spending Time in "Jacob's Room"

Spending Time in "Jacob's Room"

Spending Time in "Jacob's Room"

The first time I opened Jacob’s Room by Virginia Woolf I was 22 and on a plane to Las Vegas. I was going on a (mostly) impromptu weekend...

Making a Habit of Standing When Love Walks into the Room, or The Price of (Long-Distance) Salt

Making a Habit of Standing When Love Walks into the Room, or The Price of (Long-Distance) Salt

Making a Habit of Standing When Love Walks into the Room, or The Price of (Long-Distance) Salt

I started reading Patricia Highsmith’s The Price of Salt to get a boy to fall in love with me. I know, I know. It was as naive as it...

Nathan Hill's "The Nix" or WTF is a "Great American Novel"?

Nathan Hill's "The Nix" or WTF is a "Great American Novel"?

Nathan Hill's "The Nix" or WTF is a "Great American Novel"?

Every day on my lunch break I make some time to read. Whether it’s in the park near my office, or in the corner of my L-shaped break room...

Investigating Memory

Investigating Memory

Investigating Memory

“Memories aren’t stored as changes to the molecules inside brain cells,” Dr. Amnesty told Alma during her first appointment, three years...

Ronald Johnson: Activist, Heritage Chef, & Poet

Ronald Johnson: Activist, Heritage Chef, & Poet

Ronald Johnson: Activist, Heritage Chef, & Poet

I first learned of Ronald Johnson in graduate school, in a poetry workshop by California writer, Brian Teare. Teare had challenged me to...

The Song of Achilles: A Review & Four Fragments

The Song of Achilles: A Review & Four Fragments

The Song of Achilles: A Review & Four Fragments

It’s a hero’s task—in so subjective an art as literary adaption—to accomplish the significant act of honoring a work of written art while...

Tea With Milk

Tea With Milk

Tea With Milk

A few weeks ago, I returned from a quick 5-day trip to Tokyo. It was early April. The cherry blossoms were just beginning to bloom and...

The Obscure and Subtle Tragedies of Jim Shepard

The Obscure and Subtle Tragedies of Jim Shepard

The Obscure and Subtle Tragedies of Jim Shepard

It must have been about 9 years ago that I first read Jim Shepard. I encountered him at a reading at Marylhurst University, where I was...

Social Justice on the Macro, Empathy on the Micro

Social Justice on the Macro, Empathy on the Micro

Social Justice on the Macro, Empathy on the Micro

Right now, in this world, in this country, this state, in small liberal-minded Portland, OR–I’ve been thinking a lot. Reading. Meeting...

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2020 and The One Where We All Try to Stay Sane

Tunnel Vision: Preparing to Hike the Pacific Crest Trail

Giverny, This Way

Happy Holidays!

My First Foray Into The Wonderful Wallowas

Spice and Rain

Traveling with Less

Antibiotics and Balinese Dance, A Winning Combination

Let's Confuse Each Other In German: How I Turned 30 in Paris

Driving Through a Derecho, or, Toto, We Are Unfortunately Still in Kansas

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