Past Events

December 9, 2022: Author Reading with R.E. Burrillo – The Backwoods of Everywhere

After an upstate New York childhood and a bartending stint in New Orleans’ French Quarter, seasonal resort work led R. E. Burrillo to the desert Southwest, whose redrock landscapes were a source of stability through mental and physical illness. In The Backwoods of Everywhere, archaeologist Burrillo excavates his past, examining Indigenous and tourist cultures, the complexities of American archaeology, and what it means to be a local. In the vein of Bill Bryson, Tim Cahill, and Ellen Meloy, Burrillo’s is a fresh voice in humor-spiked nature writing and cultural commentary.

November 15, 2022: Book Release Celebration of Craig Childs’ Stone Desert

Originally published over twenty-five years ago, Stone Desert brings the wonder and wildness of one of our nation’s most geologically and culturally unique national parks to readers everywhere. With a new introduction by the author, this edition includes Craig Childs’s original journal—written over a winter in Canyonlands National Park and complete with pen-and-ink sketches—from which Stone Desert originated. Join Childs as he hikes the high mesas, navigates the winding canyons, and witnesses the ancient rock art of Utah’s most inscrutable and remote slickrock desert.

October 14, 2022: Suzanne Roberts in Conversation with Amy Irvine

Suzanne Roberts is the author of the award-winning essay collection Animal Bodies: On Death, Desire, and Other Difficulties (March 2022), the award-winning travel memoir in essays Bad Tourist: Misadventures in Love and Travel (2020), and the memoir Almost Somewhere: Twenty-Eight Days on the John Muir Trail (Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award), as well as four books of poems. Named “The Next Great Travel Writer” by National Geographic’s Traveler, Suzanne’s work has been listed as notable in Best American Essays and included in The Best Women’s Travel Writing. Suzanne holds a doctorate in literature and the environment from the University of Nevada-Reno, teaches in the low residency MFA program in creative writing at UNR-Tahoe, and splits her time between South Lake Tahoe, California and an old green van named Shrek.

Amy Irvine is the author of numerous essays and four nonfiction books addressing environmental, Indigenous and feminist concerns. She is a contributing editor for Orion Magazine, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Outside, Orion, Pacific Standard, Best American Science & Nature Writing, and Best American Food Writing. Her first memoir, Trespass, received the Orion Book Award, and the Ellen Meloy Desert Writers Award. Her second memoir, Almost Animal, is forthcoming by Spiegel & Grau in Spring 2023. Irvine, a Mountainview MFA alumnus, lives, writes, and teaches off-grid on a remote mesa in southwest Colorado.

We’re always blown away by the colors and textures of local artist Serena Suplee 😍 Excited to say we have her 2024 calendars available on our website for sale, and in store as always with Serena’s cards, postcards, and prints! 

#backofbeyond #backofbeyondbooks #serenasupplee #2024calendars #localartists #coloradoplateau #gicleeprint #pleinairpainting #pleinairpainter #pleinairartist #eatreadsleeplocal
Staff Pick this week contributed by Megan. If you’re looking for your next read, this one definitely should be a contender!

All of Us Together in the End
By Matthew Vollmer

“When I first picked this book up from the “Staff Picks” shelf of a Portland bookstore (you’ll never catch me turning down the opportunity to roam the shelves of an indie bookseller no matter how much time I spend in one on the clock) I wasn’t quite sure what genre to file it into in my brain. The synopsis starts with the death of the author’s mother, then the introduction of inexplicable flashing lights in the woods behind his grieving father’s home – suddenly I’m coercing mystery, religiosity, paranormalcy, even perhaps extraterrestrial contact into my expectations of what I might find in this book alongside grief, loss, and familial connection.

Entrancing from the start, Vollmer’s memoir brings all these ideas together in a compassionate exploration of things that we believe – or might believe, or stop believing – when faced with loss, tough questions, and unexplainable mysteries. The prose is lyrical yet unpretentious, allowing empathy and curiosity to guide father and son’s process of grieving, rebuilding, and truth finding.

“All of Us Together in the End” is a beautiful read and well-deserving of its spot on that Portland Staff Picks shelf, as well as, now, on my own here at Back of Beyond.”

#backofbeyond #backofbeyondbooks #bobbstaffpick #allofustogetherintheend #matthewvollmer #eatreadsleeplocal