J. R. Patterson

J. R. Patterson was born on a cattle and grain farm in rural Manitoba, Canada. He has worked as a farm laborer, factory worker, and writer. His fiction was longlisted for the 2016 CBC Short Story Contest. His essays can be found in Maisonneuve and Overland.

Speaking in Tongues

Spring 2021
J. R. Patterson

Photo by David Norman / Unsplash A writer with Scottish ancestry traces the life of Scottish Gaelic and assesses the current state of this “intangible heritage” now placed at the center of...
Glasgow, City of Storytellers

Spring 2021
J. R. Patterson

Photo by Artur Kraft / Unsplash GLASGOW IS NOT SO MUCH OF A CITY of books as a city of stories and storytellers. In the years I lived there, the stories I heard reflected the...
Mahall al-Maa: Amman, Jordan

Winter 2021
J. R. Patterson

Photo by Hussein Alazaat IN THE BONE-CRACKING ARIDITY of Jordan, civilizations are still born from, and borne upon, water. On the poppling wellsprings found on the hills and w...