Articles By: Jordan Green

Jordan Green is from Portland, Oregon. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Burnside Writers Collective. Besides editing, Jordan Green has also worked as a courier, a barista at a large coffee purveyor, and as a US Army Counterintelligence Agent, among other things. He currently lives in Phoenix, Arizona, with his wife, Mindy, a daughter who is due in a month, a dog, and two cats.

We Have Ways of Making You Talk

Long before I came to edit this site, I enlisted in the Army. When you enlist, there are a number of jobs you can choose from. These are called MOS’s, or Military Occupational Specialties, because the US military never says anything simply. I didn’t want to be a truck driver or an infantryman,...

February 3rd, 2010 | Essays, Featured | Read More

The Decade in American Christianity

If you’ve been exposed to any sort of media the last week or so, you’ve likely seen a number of year and decade recapping lists. Lists are generally fun to write, allow the composer to bask in the genius of their own opinion, and can be prepared to run in the dead week between Christmas...

December 31st, 2009 | Essays, Featured | Read More

The Best Television Scenes of the Decade

I’ve stated a number of times the ’00s were the Golden Age of television, when HBO and a number of network shows officially blew the film industry out of the water. When we look back on the great stories of this decade, we’ll remember books like Marilynne Robinson’s “Gilead”,...

December 27th, 2009 | Featured, The Idiot Box | Read More

The Patron Saint of Burnside

David Gentiles, father of Hannah, Calla and Ariele, passed away Friday in Austin, Texas. He was badly injured in a weightlifting accident, and held on long enough for his daughters to reach his side. David’s name should be familiar to fans of Donald Miller. He was Don’s youth leader growing...

December 20th, 2009 | Essays, Featured | Read More

Christmas In the Margins

Editor’s Note: In celebration of the release of, as Larry Shallenberger puts it, “Burnside writer, sage, and smart aleck” John Blase’s first book, here’s an interview between John and the enigmatic Thomas Marshfield. After you read it, go to Amazon.com or Powells or something...

December 8th, 2009 | Burnside Sells Out, Featured | Read More

The Most Important Writer You Might Not Know Anything About

Here’s last week’s New York Times bestsellers list. It’s a standard list, for the most part. There’s the Freakonomics guy. There’s two from Malcolm Gladwell. Ted Kennedy is battling it out with Glenn Beck. There’s John Krakauer and Augusten Burroughs and...

November 16th, 2009 | Books, Featured, Sports | Read More

The State of SNL

Only one of these people was actually funny. Every year around this time, like clockwork, naysayers commence tossing barbs at Saturday Night Live, about how it’s going downhill, about how it’s become a dinosaur. Admittedly, I did it last year, about a week or two before SNL proceeded to kick...

October 22nd, 2009 | Featured, The Idiot Box | Read More

The Hipster Conundrum

Shortly before we moved to Phoenix, we went out with some friends to Rontoms, a bar/restaurant on lower East Burnside. “Part of me is glad we’re moving for a while,” I told my friend Steve on the back patio, between puffs on American Spirit mediums. I pointed at the tables packed...

October 15th, 2009 | Essays, Featured | Read More

The “Million Miles in a Thousand Years” Open Thread

Last night, Dan Gibson and I (along with some other lovely folks) had the privilege of seeing the sole Arizona stop on Donald Miller’s Million Miles Book Tour. Burnsider Susan Isaacs was excellent in her one-woman show taken directly from the pages of her hilarious memoir, Angry Conversations...

October 1st, 2009 | Books, Featured | Read More

Fall Premiere Season

Ah, fall: when a young woman’s thoughts turn to warm fires and books, a young man’s thoughts turn to college football, and Phoenicians dream of going outside once more. I used to be a summer man, but now I’m all about autumn. This week’s forecast dips down to a balmy 99 degrees! ...

September 30th, 2009 | Featured, Television, The Idiot Box | Read More