Instagram story viewer> @thebackoftheline> Posts

Parker

@thebackoftheline

1.2K

followers

1766

following

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

The DISQUIET International Literary Program is open for applications! Apply now to be part of our two-week summer program, which will take place June 27-July 9, 2027 in Lisbon, Portugal.

We will be joined by an incredible cohort of faculty members — Gabriel Bump, Anelise Chen, Brian Evenson, Bruna Dantas Lobato, Diana Khoi Nguyen, and Joseph Earl Thomas, and even more to be announced soon!

Apply to DISQUIET 2027 between now and December 15, 2026, using this link or the application page linked in our bio: https://disquietinternational.org/apply-now/

DISQUIET offers scholarships! Emerging writers can win publication and a full tuition waiver to attend DISQUIET in 2027 by entering the DISQUIET Literary Prize, which is open now until January 4, 2027. Read the full contest deadlines here: http://disquietinternational.org/the-program/contests-scholarships/the-disquiet-prize/.

#writing #writersofinstagram #writingsubmissions #writingprograms #writingcontest taken in Lisbon, Portugal by @thebackoftheline

994

4

a month ago

Domestic graffiti, potion pharmacy, stencil, nascent comics… by @thebackoftheline

69

7

a month ago

taken in Lisbon, Portugal by @thebackoftheline

35

0

3 months ago

We had a wonderful two weeks at the 2026 DISQUIET International Literary Program! What a beautiful series of writing workshops, publishing panels, readings, and community events. Thank you to all of these incredible people for making this program a phenomenal literary experience in Lisbon, Portugal.

Photo credits:

©EGEAC – Teatro São Luiz, Pedro Rosário Nunes

Inês Pinto Gonçalves/FLAD

@steventagle by @thebackoftheline

264

2

3 months ago

In 2011, during the first DISQUIET in Lisbon, we were lucky enough to book Antonio Lobo Antunes. Teresa Tamen of the CNC set it up and the event was to be held at FLAD. We had a very loose framework, which is to say, we didn’t know whether he planned to read from his work or take questions or what. I’d say that our framework was so loose that, up until the moment he arrived, we were not certain that he was really going to show. He had been in bad health, and there was a general sense of uncertainty around the whole thing. And then, suddenly, he was there with a small entourage, and something in the air changed. I sat down next to him at a table at the front of the lecture hall from where, in the Portuguese style, I would read my introduction. We exchanged a few words. He spoke English in a soft, gravelly voice. We went through the pomp and circumstance and then, after some applause, he started to speak in that same soft, gravelly voice. “I’m going to speak to you in Portuguese,” he said. “I want you to hear the music of the language. It’s a beautiful language.” He recounted, still in English, that Cervantes once said that Portuguese is Spanish without the bones. “So I’m going to speak to you in a language without bones,” he said. Then he switched to Portuguese, while two gentlemen with British accents translated live into our headphones. There were several hundred people there. Antunes spoke and spoke and spoke, extemporaneously and with no notes, for more than an hour. The translators had to keep switching off when their brains got tired. It is safe to say that the audience was enraptured, hanging on his every word. One whole wall of the lecture hall was sliding glass, and it was open to a garden in which birds sang loudly. And then he just stopped. He’d said what he was going to say and he was done. He hung around for a bit, talking to people in the garden. A brilliant man, a brilliant writer. He died yesterday. He was so beloved in Portugal that the Lisbon soccer team Benfica sent its public condolences, reflecting on his “decades-long bond with the team, often present in his writing and public remarks, and on a literary voice steeped in benfiquismo.” RIP by @thebackoftheline

111

6

7 months ago

The victories keep on rollin’ in. But seriously, you know how hard it is to get kids to like food? An achievement not readily discounted: Impossible Beans takes Kids Pleasin’ honors at the 2026 Fort River Elementary Chili Cook-off! taken in Amherst, Massachusetts by @thebackoftheline

93

13

7 months ago

☃ THIS THURSDAY ☃

Join us for the final Visiting Writers Series reading of the semester with:

Jeff Parker
Old Chapel, UMass Amherst
6pm

☃ Jeff Parker is the author of several books including Where Bears Roam the Streets: A Russian Journal, the novel Ovenman, and the short story collection The Taste of Penny. His newest novella, G v. P, was published in the collection Proper Imposters by the University Press of Florida. He teaches prose in the MFA Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and he is the co-founder and director of the DISQUIET International Literary Program in Lisbon, Portugal. ☃

“This brilliantly imagined tale of thorny friendship between two master storytellers is unlike anything I have ever read. A surreal road story brimming with metaphysical horrors and marvels, Jeff Parker’s G v. P gives us a darkly funny and deeply moving meditation on life, death, and art that you’ll never forget.”—Mona Awad, author of Bunny

"Jeff Parker’s 'G v. P' was the highlight of the collection. Elegant, with a magnetic narrative that begins—but absolutely does not end—with the mystery of the identities behind the titular initials, Parker’s tale is an absorbing study of a pair that are not quite friends, lovers, or enemies, but whose fates are undeniably entwined." -- Sam Spratford, The Common

☃

Reception to follow
Open to the public
See you there! taken in UMass Amherst by @thebackoftheline

232

17

a year ago

Happy new year! taken in Tallahassee, Florida by @thebackoftheline

103

12

2 years ago

Tail end of Northern Lights in Western Mass, 2024 by @thebackoftheline

129

3

2 years ago

11 years of @disquietilp on display at @centronacionalcultura; 12th edition rockin’ and rollin’… taken in Lisbon, Portugal by @thebackoftheline

129

6

2 years ago

This pandemic pup is 4 in human years as of May 9, already a Silverback gorilla! by @thebackoftheline

77

8

2 years ago

Eclipse ‘24 with @chekmax3 and @shelbymarieno and co at UMass Renaissance Center. Thanks to the kindly English professor who donated us champagne! See you for the next one in—is it 2044? taken in Amherst, Massachusetts by @thebackoftheline

117

2

3 years ago