Brian Doyle (1956-2017) was the longtime editor of Portland Magazine at the University of Portland, in Oregon. He was the author of six collections of essays, two nonfiction books, two collections of “proems,” the short story collection Bin Laden’s Bald Spot, the novella Cat’s Foot, and the novels Mink River, The Plover, and Martin Marten. He is also the editor of several anthologies, including Ho`olaule`a, a collection of writing about the Pacific islands. Doyle’s books have seven times been finalists for the Oregon Book Award, and his essays have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, Orion, The American Scholar, The Sun, The Georgia Review, and in newspapers and magazines around the world, including The New York Times, The Times of London, and The Age (in Australia). His essays have also been reprinted in the annual Best American Essays, Best American Science & Nature Writing, and Best American Spiritual Writing anthologies. Among various honors for his work is a Catholic Book Award, three Pushcart Prizes, the John Burroughs Award for Nature Essays, Foreword Reviews’ Novel of the Year award in 2011, and the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2008 (previous recipients include Saul Bellow, Kurt Vonnegut, Flannery O’Connor, and Mary Oliver).”
Brian Doyle

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Their Irrepressible Innocence
On the wonderment experienced, hilarity witnessed, and wisdom gained from time spent with kindergarteners. Continue reading
Poetry
Tyee
I have been writing too many condolence letters lately. I am using the same sorts of words and the words have Become husks of what they used to be. Like the Continue reading
ENUMERATION

9 Places to Pee in the Great Outdoors
1. The Ocean. If you are female, and at least three feet tall so that the waves do not knock you down, or so I am told, not that I asked Continue reading
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21 Laws of Nature as Interpreted by My Children
1. If you shake hands with an evergreen tree and the branch bites you, that’s a spruce. 2. Insects rule the world, but they don’t talk about it. 3. The reason Continue reading
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Raptorous
I HAVE BEEN SO hawk-addled and owl-absorbed and falcon-haunted and eagle-maniacal since I was a little kid that it was a huge shock to me to discover that there were people Continue reading
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20 Things the Dog Ate
1. ANCIENT SQUASHED DRIED ROUND FLAT SHARD OF BEAVER Sweet mother of the mewling baby Jesus! You wouldn’t think a creature that likes to watch Peter O’Toole movies would be such Continue reading
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How to Live in Your Car
Now here’s a story: a guy in Oregon has figured out how to turn the hulks of four to six former cars into cool little houses that cost between $100,000 and Continue reading
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The Greatest Nature Essay Ever
. . . WOULD BEGIN WITH an image so startling and lovely and wondrous that you would stop riffling through the rest of the mail, take your jacket off, sit down Continue reading
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Brian Doyle’s Reading List
Hmmmmm. Let me stretch out here with some stunning reading from the past year, in which I made a concerted effort to read the greatest Oregon books, the greatest spiritual writers, Continue reading
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How We Wrestle Is Who We Are
MY SON LIAM was born ten years ago. He looked like a cucumber on steroids. He was fat and bald and round as a cucumber on steroids. He looked healthy as Continue reading