About
Who is Matt Briggs?

Who is Matt Briggs?

About

Matt Briggs’ books, particularly The Remains of River Names and the novel Shoot the Buffalo, are to Seattle and the Pacific Northwest what Steinbeck’s Cannery Row and Grapes of Wrath were to the Salinas Valley and Monterey, or William Faulkner’s best work to New Orleans. Briggs has the language, cadence, and rain-shrouded soul of the Northwest honed to perfection in his candid […]

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The Floating Bridge

The Floating Bridge

About

When I was a baby in the early seventies, my father used to rock me for hours in his rocking chair. Once, while drinking his second forty ounces of malt liquor he puked on me, and I jumped down from the chair and ran into the kitchen. “Mom, Dad spilt on me.” I don’t remember […]

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The Genre of Silence

The Genre of Silence

About

An essay in eight parts. My Father and the Genre of Silence Isaac Babel the Master of the Genre of Silence My Father What is Silence? What is Genre? Quick Rhetoric of Photographs Barthes The Woods    

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Regional Wrangle

Regional Wrangle

About

This is a copy of my presentation in what was called The Regional Wrangle where I argued for a Pacific Northwest regional identity against Lyall Bush, who was on the con side. This happened at Richard Hugo House June 2004. Christopher Frizzelle wrote about it his Nightstand column shortly afterward. (Frizzelle said I lost.) The […]

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Seattle is a Vortex

Seattle is a Vortex

About

I often stumble into a new part of Seattle. The smell of freshly poured concrete and sprayed paint creates a sensation like vertigo, like standing on top of the Aurora Bridge, staring down into the ship canal and realizing I’m standing on a shell of asphalt and concrete and steel wrapping the wind and current […]

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Queen City Lit

Queen City Lit

About

A while ago I was talking to a couple of writers about how much I enjoyed this book called After Nirvana by Lee Williamsabout homeless kids working their way up and down I-5, a book I think of as being about the actual place we all live rather than the mystical pioneer stuff being foisted […]

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Copyright © 2017 Matt Briggs