Surrounded by stiff competition up and down Historic Highway 101, Newport, Oregon doesn’t always make the usual internet lists of the North West’s best coastal communities. But Oregonians have long known of its charm. Newport offers visitors everything the northern Pacific coast is known for – jagged coastline, sustainably-caught seafood, unique lodging options, coffee, crabs, and of course, craft beer. The little town of ten thousand also boasts a surprising amount of sunshine in the winter months, making it a year-round destination and a possible respite from Portland’s soggier days. Whether day-tripping from the city or exploring the PNW (aka the Pacific Northwest), Newport is not to be missed. Oh, and the town is also surrounded by big, barking sea lions.
https://www.realfoodtraveler.com/first-timers-guide-newport-oregon/
Published in Mental Floss:
“You can find a hiking trail or walking path almost anywhere in the United States, whether you're deep in the backcountry or a few yards from a parking lot. Most casual hikers probably give them little thought before lacing up their boots, but hiking trails don't just appear naturally. Sure, the popular pathways are created with shovels and sweat and grit, but that's not all: Modern trail construction actually involves a significant amount of anticipating what potential hikers will do and analyzing the area surrounding the route. The ultimate goal: "A useful trail must be easy to find, easy to travel, and convenient to use.”
http://mentalfloss.com/article/555041/how-hiking-trails-are-created
(Forthcoming)
Based on every article and blog post I’d read about teaching in Korea, I expected it to be a great adventure in which I’d make lifelong friends, gain valuable teaching experience, and fall in love with Korean culture.
It didn’t turn out that way.
I wish I’d come across more accounts of teachers who had struggled in Korea before I signed my contract. If I had, I might have been more prepared to face challenges as they arose. Here’s what I wish I’d known before teaching in Korea.
“Pablo! Get back in the closet!” I yell over gunfire.
Unarmed and unaware of the encroaching danger outside, Pablo Escobar retreats to the bathroom closet with a startled backward leap. I kneel low under the panorama window; chips of blue shower tiles dig at my knees.
Published in Deep South Magazine
“More than six decades after her death, a rusty gate still halfheartedly guards the sandy path to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ rural Central Florida home. Although Rawlings remains best remembered for her 1938 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Yearling, the tear-jerking tale of a young boy and his pet deer fails to properly capture the intrepid spirit of its author. Her story is best told by the traditional Cracker-style house and surrounding citrus grove she called home, and writing muse, for most of her life.”
https://deepsouthmag.com/2018/02/28/grove-visit-florida-home-marjorie-kinnan-rawlings/
Published in The Smart Set
“I didn’t want to get angry about it again, but it did matter. The combination of sounds and letters that make up a name stand as a shorthand for your whole personhood; the tether to which the rest of your personality and history is tied. Without one you’re just a pronoun or “that girl.” Anonymous. With the wrong one you aren’t you.”
Published in Flyway: Journal of Writing and the Environment
“He told us that he remembered spotting a full mammoth skull, complete with tusks, jutting out of a cliff along the shore while whaling as a boy. It took him and his friends five hours to dig it out, balancing in their small boat and fighting the rising tide. Once they removed the whole skull, they gave it to the oldest boy who kept it in his living room for a time. Ross didn’t know where it went after that. The market for mammoth didn’t exist then. “
http://flywayjournal.org/non-fiction/memories-of-a-mammoth-hunter-victoria-sanderson/
Published in The Sonder Review
“As the sun settled on the mountains in the distance, I squinted to see Levi, running in a crouch with the barrel of his gun pointing above his head. Ahead of him, I could just spot the caribou standing above the treeless tundra.
KOTZ Radio— “the hottest station in the Arctic”— had announced that the sun was going to set for the first time since summer began, but it would be another month before it dipped low enough, long enough for streetlights to be turned on. New systems for blocking out the midnight sun were frequent topics of conversation among our small group of Park Service seasonals.”
https://issuu.com/thesonderreview/docs/the_sonder_review__issue_9__winter_
Published in Big Muddy: A Journal of the Mississippi River Valley
“Throughout more than two hundred and forty years of American democracy, few moments in the republic’s history have proved as truly democratic, and as cocksure, as the time Frank Sinatra sang John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign song. A collaboration between a candidate for leader of the free world, the son of an Irish dynasty with wealth born from bootlegging, and one of the most successful entertainers of the twentieth century, the son of Italian immigrants whose father bare-knuckle boxed under the name Marty O’Brien. Both under forty-five and both on Joe DiMaggio’s shit list for their relationships with Marylyn Monroe—the highest examples of American Exceptionalism. The moment remains preserved in the narrow grooves of an unknown number of recorded singles, waiting for someone to carefully lower a hollowed needle to their vinyl skin and spin them back to life at forty-five revolutions per minute.”
https://bigmuddyjournal.com/ (only available in print)
A longform biography of the second best-selling author of 1920, Opal Whiteley.
The piece forefronts primary sources like Opal’s letters and declassified reports written for 110-page file kept on her by the British Library Oriental and India Office. This structure allows Opal to speak for herself where possible and lets readers draw their own conclusions about the remaining mysteries surrounding her legacy.
