About
Matt Jones is a writer, reporter, and photographer from Houston, Texas. He holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Alabama and a BA in English writing and rhetoric from St. Edward’s University.
As a writer, Matt has received support from organizations such as the Ohio Arts Council, the Vermont Studio Center, the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, the Leopold Writing Program, and Oregon State University's Spring Creek Project. His essay “No Heart, No Moon” was selected for the 2019 Best American Science and Nature Writing anthology, and his short story “The Changeling” was chosen as a distinguished story in The Best American Stories 2018. His short fiction has been nominated for the Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize anthologies and awarded The Southampton Review’s 2020 Short Short Fiction Prize. His recent work has appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Boulevard, Carve Magazine, Gay Mag, and The Pinch.
As a reporter, Matt has written for outlets including The Atlantic and Tahoe Quarterly Magazine. His article “Into the Big Blue Abyss” was recognized by the Nevada Press Foundation as the Best Sports Feature Writing of 2022. He currently works as an assistant news editor at The Standard Journal, based out of Milton, Pennsylvania. In 2023, he secured a $7000 reporting grant from Grist Magazine and the Center for Rural Strategies to write a series on the challenges faced by local volunteer fire companies.
Matt’s photography has been featured in ColorTag Mag, Nevada Magazine, The Standard Journal, and Ruminate Magazine. In his free time, he enjoys hiking, reading, and combing through archival research.
Selected Writing
fiction
“Pests” Carve Magazine
“You Ought to Kill it Now” Alaska Quarterly Review
“Before Dawn” The Southampton Review
“Ponderation” Threepenny Review
“Frank” Columbia Review
“Here Lies My Mother” Scalawag Magazine
“Am I Not Your Animal” The Chicago Tribune
“The Changeling” Ruminate Magazine
“The Mouse's Petition” Wigleaf
“Erowid Experience Vault: Trump-Shaped Ecstasy Pills” McSweeney's Internet Tendency
“Water, Water Everywhere” Post Road
“The Kissy-Faced Cha Cha” apt
“Until the Moss Has Reached Our Lips” Beneath Ceaseless Skies
“Leftment” Interfictions: A Journal of Interstitial Arts
Memoir
“Hymn for the Inverted Heart“ The Pinch
“Poses for the Beginning Figure Model, or The Art of Revealing Yourself“ Gay Mag
“And Miles to Go Before I Sleep“ The Manifest Station
“Where There's Smoke“ Full Grown People
“The World is Your Oyster (and Your Cricket and Your Peacock)” Entropy
“Slow Burn” Electric Literature's Okey-Panky
“Cosmic American Music” The Journal
“Tallahatchie Flats” Slice Magazine
“On Hunger and Sleep” Hippocampus Magazine
researched nonfiction
“Magic Lantern, Dark Forest” Boulevard Magazine
“Jane: A Composite” Grist: A Journal of the Literary Arts
“The Unthinkable Fossil of Hope“ The New England Review
“Children of the Sun” Michigan Quarterly Review
“No Heart, No Moon” The Southern Review (reprinted in Longreads)
”Wanted Women and Female Fugitives“ PopMatters
“Impossible Colors of an Infinite Universe” Clarkesworld
“When Typists Were Feared as Love Pirates“ The Atlantic
reportage
“Grooving on the Go” Tahoe Quarterly Magazine
“Hermann Goellner: A Freestyle Skiing Pioneer Who Was Too Far Ahead of His Time” Tahoe Quarterly Magazine
“In the Business of Brotherhood” Tahoe Quarterly Magazine
“Into the Big Blue Abyss” Tahoe Quarterly Magazine
Poetry
“Braces” and “Mother, No” Bayou Magazine
“Forget What I Said” Faultline Journal of Arts and Letters
“fame“ Barrelhouse
Audio
“The Long Night” The Normal School
“Between the Wish and the Thing“ Penny Magazine
Photography
In addition to his writing, editing, and reporting work, Matt is also a photographer. He is the co-founder of Wild Burro, a small art, design, and publishing studio based out of Pennsylvania.
Contact
Matt enjoys connecting with fellow writers, photographers, and editors. Please reach out via the form below or use the email link in the footer of this page.