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. He has written for a variety of international publications, including National Geographic, Literary Review of Canada, and LARB.
See something once, and you see it everywhere. In Quito’s old town it was geraniums: on the curly-whirly balconies, in the porticoes of the old baroque buildings, and the great open squares, there wer…