Sebastian Matthews is the author of the memoir In My Father’s Footsteps (W.W. Norton & Co.) as well as two collections of poetry, We Generous and Miracle Day, both published by Red Hen Press.  A third collection, Beginner’s Guide to a Head-on Collision, was published by Red Hen in 2017.  His poetry and prose have appeared in American Poetry Review, The Atlantic, Blackbird, The Common, From the Fishouse, Georgia Review, Massachusetts Review, New England Review, Poets & Writers, storySouth, The Sun, Tin House, Virginia Quarterly Review, Writer’s Almanac, and Writer’s Chronicle, among others.  He earned an MFA in Fiction from the University of Michigan, and has taught in the Undergraduate Writing Program, Warren Wilson College; Great Smokies Writing Program, University of North Carolina, Asheville; and the Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing, Queen’s University of Charlotte as well as serving as a Visiting Writer at a host of institutions, including Franklin and Marshall, Institute of American Indian Arts, Pitzer College, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (Meacham Conference), UNC-Wilmington’s Writers Week, and the Vermont Studio Center, among others.  

He is the recipient of fellowships from the North Carolina Arts Council, Vermont Studio Center, and Asheville Area Arts Council, as well being awarded a Bernard DeVoto Fellowship in Nonfiction at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference.  Formerly the editor of Rivendell, a place-based literary journal, he now serves on the editorial board of Q Avenue Press, where he designs, edits, and produces collaborative chapbooks and letterpress broadsides.  In addition, he has served as poetry editor for Ecotone: Re-Imagining Place and as guest editor at the Asheville Poetry Review, working with editor Keith Flynn on its jazz issue.  His collages have been exhibited at Asheville Book Works and William King Museum’s Contemporary Regional Gallery and featured in Asheville Poetry Review, Café Review, and Iron Horse Review.  He curated the show From BMC to NYC: The Tutelary Years of Ray Johnson (1943-1967) for the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center as well as edited the exhibition catalogue.  He is a member of the Advisory Board for Callaloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts & Letters.