Bauder Lecture Series

Overwhelmed with grief over the death of his mother, shamed by his failures in marriage and fatherhood, and burdened by massive debt, Devin’s life is spiraling out of control. That is, until he discovers the impossible: nostalgia is his superpower. With a random touch of family memorabilia, he can mentally travel back in time, reliving the best moments of his past while finding relief from the present. With his mother gone, Devin can now investigate her greatest secret: the identity of the father he never knew. But the more Devin "backflashes" into time, the faster his present life falls apart. On this hunt for a truth that was never supposed to come to light, Devin must come to terms with his past if he wants any chance at a future. Backflash is a riveting literary graphic novel thriller laced with sly humor and raw emotion that explores time travel in wild and un-predictable ways.

Mat Johnson is an award-winning novelist, graphic novelist, and professor whose work explores race, identity, and American history through satire, historical fiction, and humor. The son of a Black mother and an Irish American father, Johnson draws on his own experiences to offer thought-provoking perspectives on what it means to be a person of color in America. His acclaimed novels include Hunting in Harlem, Pym, and Loving Day, the latter of which was named a New York Times Notable Book and is widely used in common reading programs at colleges and universities. Johnson is also the author of the graphic novel Incognegro, which examines racial passing and America's history of lynching through a noir mystery. His honors include the Dos Passos Prize for Literature and recognition as the first James Baldwin Fellow. Johnson is a professor in the Creative Writing Program and English Department at the University of Oregon.

Steven Leyva was born in New Orleans, Louisiana and raised in Houston, Texas. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in 2 Bridges Review, Scalawag, Nashville Review, jubilat, Vinyl, Prairie Schooner, and Best American Poetry 2020. He is a Cave Canem fellow and author of the chapbook Low Parish and author of The Understudy’s Handbook which won the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize from Washington Writers Publishing House. His second book of poems, The Opposite of Cruelty, is forthcoming from Blair Publishing in March 2025. Steven holds an MFA from the University of Baltimore, where he is an associate professor in the Klein Family School of Communications Design.