Matthew Gavin Frank | |
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Born | November 25, 1976 Chicago, Illinois |
Occupation | Writer |
Nationality | American |
Genre | Creative nonfiction, lyric essay, poetry |
Website | |
matthewgfrank |
Matthew Gavin Frank (born 1976) is an American writer, specializing in creative nonfiction, the lyric essay, literary food and travel writing, and poetry.
Matthew Gavin Frank grew up in Illinois, before graduating from Arizona State University with an MFA. [1]
He has previously taught at Grand Valley State University [2] and continues to teach in the English department at Northern Michigan University, [3] where he is also the Nonfiction and Hybrid Editor of the literary journal Passages North. [4] [5]
His nonfiction books include, Flight of the Diamond Smugglers: A Tale of Pigeons, Obsession, and Greed Along Coastal South Africa (2021) — named a finalist for the Heartland Booksellers Award in Nonfiction [6] and an NPR Best Book of 2021 [7] —, The Mad Feast (2015), Preparing the Ghost (2014), Pot Farm (2012), and Barolo (2010). [8] Frank's books of poetry include, The Morrow Plots (2013), Warranty in Zulu (2010), and Sagittarius Agitprop (2009).
Frank's work has appeared in numerous magazines, including The New Republic, Conjunctions, The Iowa Review, Gulf Coast, The Kenyon Review, Salon, [9] and Gastronomica and has been anthologized in The Best Travel Writing, Best Food Writing, and Creative Nonfiction: The Best of Brevity.
Heart of Dankness and Pot Farm present two very different examples of civilians wading into the legally murky, phenomenally profitable marijuana industry. The former is a globetrotting, journalistic trip through the nerdier echelons of marijuana development, while the latter is a lyrical, present-tense memoir that barely strays from its Edenic setting.
That makes "Preparing the Ghost" unsatisfying at times, but also alluring. It's hard to imagine a better book about not entirely understanding giant squids.