Matt Briggs is one of those rare artists whose encyclopedic knowledge of the region in which they work is matched only by their enthusiasm for sharing it. In both his fiction and nonfiction, he never simplifies attitudes, ideas, or actions, but imagines and represents them in all of their glorious self-contradiction. He’s been an inspiring figure for me when thinking and writing about Seattle and the Pacific Northwest, and his participation in the Twin Peaks Project was a true honor. Partially for reasons I list above, it’s difficult to describe his unique and shifting essay, though it turns around issues of modernity, romanticism, art, and the uses and abuses of nature. But it’s not difficult to recommend it–up now in the new issue of MOSS, an exciting new journal of writing about the Northwest.