My name’s Matt. As you can guess from the title, I write stories with an element of mystery. They often involve dinosaurs. Here’s why:
Background
I was born and raised in Colorado Springs. When I was a kid, Colorado Springs was famously a hotbed of evangelicalism. If that’s still how you think of it, you might enjoy my archive on evangelicalism and culture. But growing up, Colorado Springs was important for other reasons, too.
For one thing, the place had a storybook-quality. Ultra-blue skies over purple mountains. Red-rock bluffs dotted with scrub brush and pine. Pronghorn speeding down plains and coyotes howling at the stars. It turns a kid’s brain to adventure stories.
Colorado Springs also has more than its share of mysteries. To pick some obvious examples: Colorado has way more castles than a state in the middle of America should. Real-life mad scientist Nikola Tesla used the city as his lair while he built his death ray to destroy the world.[1] The Manitou Cliff Dwellings, built centuries before we white suburbanites could guess at their motives, tower in silent sentry of the world around them.
Finally, Colorado Springs was a place of dinosaurs. It’s in one of the most important fossil areas in the world. This meant endless museums and tourist traps. It also meant that, during my long afternoons pouring over my small library of dinosaur books, I could picture everything happening in my own backyard. Dinosaurs were an everyday part of life.
Discovery
These three passions (except for maybe the dinosaurs) led me to become an English major in college. When I wasn’t busy worrying about how I was going to make money after graduating, I was studying literary theory as a visiting student at Oxford University. While there, I stumbled upon something involving stories, mystery, and dinosaurs. I don’t want to sound like a jerk, but it might be one of the most important discoveries of the century.
If you want to learn more about that discovery, and the writing projects it led to, you should visit the Kosmosa tab on this site.[2]
For reasons I’ll explain on that Kosmosa tab,[3] I sat on my discovery for longer than I should have. This is partly because, after graduating from college, I tried making it as a Bohemian writer. This failed after I realized two important things: (1) I wasn’t making any money as a Bohemian writer; and (2) I needed money in order to stay alive.
So I decided to become a lawyer, and ended up at Yale Law School. While there, I had a realization that led me to go forward in telling people about my discovery. Again, head over to the Kosmosa tab for the story.[4]
After law school, I moved back to Colorado Springs. This was partly because I found a job as a lawyer. It was also because it gave me a chance to write my stories, solve my mysteries, and…be close to dinosaur bones.
Current Projects
Obviously, my biggest current project is that discovery I won’t shut up about. That’s why it has its own tab.[5] But I do other things on this site, too.
I’m a member artist of the Anselm Society’s Arts Guild. I co-host one of Anselm’s podcasts, “Believe to See.” This is a podcast about the arts, faith, and the things you’d talk about with your arts-loving friends at your local pub. We post a new episode every two weeks. When we post a new episode, I’ll generally write a few extra thoughts about the episode on this site.
I tinker with other stories, too. Many of them involve a (lightly) fictionalized version of my childhood, and my imagined adventures. The stories involve everything from Bigfoot, to Santa Claus, to a future where I’m an old man in a robot suit. I’ll post those stories here in serial fashion—one piece at a time.
Finally, I write the occasional essay or review. Sometimes for this site, sometimes for other sites. Among other places, my writing has appeared at Slate, Mere Orthodoxy, and Fare Forward. Here, you can expect maybe one of these posts per month. This could be in the form of a written essay, a video review, or something else I haven’t thought of yet.
Other Things
I attend International Anglican Church in Colorado Springs. I consider myself an Anglo-catholic. If you’re not sure what that means, be careful: I’d love to tell you all about it in painful detail.
I’ve been married to my wife, Danielle, since 2012. We have three young kids: all of them are boys, and all of them are crazy (in the best way). We also have a mini Aussie named Scout. Scout and I are best friends. Scout and Danielle are frenemies.
My other interests include Colorado sports teams
(especially the Broncos and Nuggets), trying new flavors of soda, and playing
pickleball. No, seriously.
[1] At least, that’s how I always understood the history.
[2] Coming Soon!
[3] Also coming soon!
[4] Coming soon—really!
[5] Or will in the near future!