M A T T R Y D E E N

Matt is a queer Midwestern visual artist and writer exploring the strange resonance of childhood, the echoes we inherit, and the stories that refuse to stay buried. His fiction lingers in the quiet spaces between people, blending emotional precision with a subtle, unsettling edge, revealing the fault lines beneath family, identity, and home. His writing has appeared in numerous literary journals and magazines, where readers have enjoyed its lyrical restraint and disquieting intimacy.

He is currently at work on House of Carnivál, a dreamy coming‑of‑age young adult novel set within a traveling carnival that drifts through the American Southwest, where borders—real or imagined—can’t contain who you are. Beneath the carnival’s romantic, old‑world magic lies a darker mystery: haunted artifacts, a sinister collector, and a town whose bigotry turns violent. As Tanner discovers his own hidden talents and the carnies give him a new name and identity, he must confront both the horrors of the town and the ghosts of his past.