MATTHEW SALESSES

bestselling novelist + creative writing Scholar + Groundbreaking Voice on Grief

Matthew salesses’s bio

Matthew Salesses (he/him) is a bestselling novelist and acclaimed creative writing scholar. He is the author of eight books, most recently The Sense of Wonder, the national bestseller Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping (a Best Book of 2021 at NPR, Esquire, Library Journal, Independent Book Review, Chicago Tribune, Electric Literature, and others), and the PEN/Faulkner Finalist and Dublin Literary Award longlisted novel Disappear Doppelgänger Disappear. He also wrote The Hundred-Year Flood; I’m Not Saying, I’m Just Saying; Different Racisms: On Stereotypes, the Individual, and Asian American Masculinity; The Last Repatriate; and Our Island of Epidemics (out of print). His forthcoming ninth book is the highly anticipated and stunning memoir To Grieve Is to Carry Another Time (Little, Brown). An experimental and thought-provoking narrative, the book is a groundbreaking and deeply personal meditation on grief that challenges our understanding of what grief is and illuminates what grief can offer us all.

Matthew was adopted from Korea and enjoys meeting and advocating for other adoptees. In 2015, BuzzFeed named him one of 32 Essential Asian American Writers. His essays can be found in Best American Essays 2020, NPR Code Switch, The New York Times Motherlode, The Guardian, Time, VICE.com, and other venues. His short fiction has appeared in Glimmer Train, American Short Fiction, PEN/Guernica, Witness, and elsewhere. He has received awards and fellowships from, among others, the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, Dublin Literary Award, Bread Loaf, Glimmer Train, Mid-American Review, and [PANK] Books.

An Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Virginia Tech, Matthew earned a Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Houston and an M.F.A. in Fiction from Emerson College. He serves on the editorial boards of Green Mountains Review and Machete (an imprint of The Ohio State University Press), and has held editorial positions at Pleiades, The Good Men Project, Gulf Coast, and Redivider. A popular guest author and well-known lecturer, he has spoken widely at universities, conferences, and MFA programs across the United States. He is also known for his appearances on popular TV and radio programs including PBS, NPR, and Al Jazeera America.

Get social with Matthew Salesses

Website | Instagram | Twitter | Visit Matthew at APL!

books by matthew salesses

matthew salesses in the media

Recent Articles Featuring Matthew Salesses:

• Matthew Salesses and the Art of Grieving | Publisher’s Weekly

• To Grieve Is to Carry Another Time: A Memoir - Starred Review | Library Journal

• Matthew Salesses on the Possibilities of Climate Fiction | LitHub

• How I Found My Desire to Live After My Wife Died | Time

• Matthew Salesses on Writing Plot and Cultural Context | LitHub

• 'Good-looking for an Asian': how I shed white ideals of masculinity | The Guardian

Podcasts with Matthew Salesses: