Matthew J. C. Clark writes essays that are supposed to be about other people but that are often also about himself. His work has appeared in True Story, The Morning News, Ecotone, The Indiana Review, and The Antioch Review. His essay "6'3" Man with Doritos," was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He holds an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa’s nonfiction writing program and was named the Maine Arts Commission’s 2018 Literary Fellow. At MacDowell in 2018, he completed a chapter of his book, The Wood Mill of Maine, Mercer, U.S.A. while in the Sorosis studio. The chapter had been particularly frustrating for him as it diverged from the objective literary journalism mode he often writes in and into a history of King Philip's War and a personal reckoning with his (and White America's) feelings of shame and guilt about the events of the past.
At MacDowell in 2021, he completed the last two chapters of his nonfiction book, Bjarki, Not Bjarki: On floorboards, love and irreconcilable differences. The book was published in 2024.
