Matt is the author of When Things Get Dark: A Mongolian Winter’s Tale and the first English-language children’s book published in Mongolia, The Magic Horse Fiddle. Matt’s long-form journalism and essays have appeared in the Atlantic, the New Yorker, the LA Review of Books, and Guernica, among other places.

He has received support for his work from the Fulbright Program as a Fulbright Fellow in Creative Writing to Syria and Jordan; from the Black Mountain Institute at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas as a Tom and Mary Gallagher Fellow; and from New America in Washington, D.C. as an Eric Schmidt Fellow.

He graduated from the University of Missouri with a degree in Magazine Journalism, from the University of Iowa with an MFA in Nonfiction Writing, and from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C with an MA in International Relations and International Economics.

In 2016, Matt founded and directed the Cheuse Center for International Writers at George Mason University, the only international literary diplomatic center in the Mid-Atlantic. You can read more about his work in cultural and literary diplomacy here.

Born in Chicago, Matt grew up in Evanston, Illinois, and most of his creative projects feature cultures and places different from his upbringing. He has written about and reported on the history of Mongolia, the Arab Spring in the Middle East, and the changing nature of deaf identity through the only deaf college football team in the United States.

Matt lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife and two young sons.