Welcome back to my Author Spotlight series where I shine the light on fabulous authors from around the globe to gain insight into the person behind the writer and peek into their writing world.
Today I chat with multi-award-nominated and Shadows Awards winner, Australian author, Matt Tighe.
Matt lives on a small farm in south-eastern Australia with his amazingly patient wife and kids, the dogs Sherlock and Enola, and Mycroft the cat. He is addicted to listening to audiobooks while running. You can find a list of his stories at matttighe.weebly.com as well as a cool picture of his brain drawn by his oldest son.
He is an Aurealis and Ditmar finalist and has won the Australian Shadows Award for short fiction. His wife would like him to write some stories with happy endings.
He is thinking about it.
Welcome Matt
Tell us about yourself. Who is the person behind the writer, and what do you bring from your real life into your stories?
Hi. I’m Matt Tighe (he/him). I live on a small block in the New England region of NSW with my amazing wife, three kids, and a menagerie of animals. I am a Professor of Ecosystem Modelling in my day job, working on environmental data analysis, conservation and pollution management. I grew up with my head buried in books like I suspect most people reading this would have, and I am a fiend for King, Hobb, Gaiman, Sturgeon, Jemisin, Nix, Harrow, Slatter, Warren… Best stop or won’t stop. I adore dark writing with a bit of dry humour, or humour with a bit of dark, which I think might be the hardest stuff to do.
As to what I bring to my writing, I’m still trying to figure that out. I am starting to think it is something I (we?) might always be figuring out, revisiting, reinventing. All I know so far is when I hit that character voice well I can feel it, and that is often when it connects with some experience or something deep inside that I might not have been able to articulate otherwise. Grief. Sacrifice. Frustration. Bleak, bleak humour (as dry and desolate as that desert the gunslinger walked). Love. It’s always about love, somewhere in there, right? And how we keep chasing it, and worrying at it, and comparing it with the shiny version we think someone else has.
Outside of writing stories, are you involved in any other areas in the writing industry? Eg editor/publisher/blogger etc.
I spent the last three or so years helping out with the Australasian Horror Writer’s Association, mainly by chasing down people to do interviews for the newsletter. I’ve taken a step back from that for a bit due to life coming at me, but hope to get back involved soon. Volunteering is a great way to both give back and get familiar with faces, events etc if you can manage it.
I see people strongly involved in editing or volunteering and the like and I’m amazed by their energy! One day…
What does a typical writing day look like?
Atypical is typical. I squeeze in most of my writing in the car while I am waiting at dance lessons, soccer practice, and music practice for the kids. But I have to give a shout-out to my wonderful partner who banishes me to the spare room out the back for a few hours on the weekend and bans the kids from coming near me. She knew how important this was to me before I really grasped it for myself.
So drips and drops of writing are usual, and if it is a teaching period at work I’m almost useless with a burnt-out brain afterward. I was recently lucky enough to receive the New England Writer’s Centre Varuna Fellowship which gave me a week of uninterrupted time at the National Writer’s House in Katoomba, where I wrote like a maniac and finished a draft of a novel.
When you first started writing, did you have a goal, have you met it, and how long did it take?
I had two goals – one was to get a short story published in a pro-rate magazine. The other was to publish a longer piece of work. As to how long it took… I did a little bit of writing back in 2010, and then put it away completely until the last part of 2019, when I grabbed it again as a bit of a lifeline. It took me about a year to get my first piece accepted for pub. I cried.
As to the second, IFWG is publishing my first collection of short stories next year. I’m stoked! I’m still at my novel. Keep an eye out.
What is your proudest writing achievement?
I won the Australian Shadows Award for short fiction in 2021. Just before writing this, I found out I was shortlisted x4 for Aurealis this year! But I have to say that first acceptance of a short and the thought of my upcoming collection – those things still feel surreal!
What did your path to publication look like?
Again, this is for shorts. I wrote some bad stuff (still do). Subbed and subbed and waited and read and read and chewed my liver over those stories that just glowed on the screen in front of me. For a long time, I wrote a story on every idea that came into my head, and well, it was like throwing anything I found in the kitchen in a bowl and thinking it was going to make a great cake if I stirred it enough. It took a lot of pulling my own stuff apart to realise some of the things I shouldn’t do, and a big part of it was recognizing worn-out tropes and storylines that I thought I had discovered. In a strange way, the first lot of lockdowns helped. We were all stuck at home and I had more time to get all introspective. It was painful, but it helped I think.
Was there ever a time when you thought you wouldn’t make it as a writer and what kept you going?
I had this weird thing that I have since come across several people reporting (and again, this is for short stories. I suspect the same holds true for other forms). Once I got an acceptance, a flurry followed. Yes! Motoring on. And then it all dried up, and it was rejection city to the point that I was truly thinking I had stewed on a handful of decent ideas for over forty years, dumped them out of myself and was now done. It was really tough to think, and keep thinking as the rejections rolled in.
I think there is a time when that happens and it is coupled with you still learning how to build a story – voice, character, pace, theme, and you can kind of see the potential in what you are doing but you can’t get there, while at the same time the form responses keep beating you around the head.
Dark times. The only thing that got me going through that was the thought every time I wrote something and sent it out I believed it was the best I could do, but months later, looking at it again, I could see how it could be better. I was improving, even though I believed each submission was the best. I just had to keep going.
Plus, my wife wouldn’t let me quit.
You have several publications. Do you have a favourite, or which was the most fun to write?
I love all my flesh and blood children equally if not differently. But I do have real favourites amongst my inkies. My most favourite is always the one I am currently writing. It has to be, right? All that potential, before I mar it by locking it onto the page. But of the ones that have gone out into the wide world, I will always have a soft spot for three.
Dad says he’s going to teach me how to use the gun. Mum has red, watery eyes as she chews on her toast, but she nods when I look at her.
A good big brother – matt tighe – Spawn: Weird horror tales about pregnancy, birth, and babies
“It’s a grown-up thing you need to learn, honey,” she says. “And with the baby coming, you are going to need to do some more grown up things. You will be a big brother soon.” She smiles but it’s only a little one that doesn’t make the crinkles next to her eyes. “Dad will teach you how to be careful.”
‘A Good Big Brother’ which won the Shadows Award, has an ending I love. Once I found the character, I sat and wrote that story in one go, beginning to end, and barely changed it. What a feeling!
‘Beach Memories’ which is online with the NoSleep Podcast is really short and creeps me out. Again, I love the ending.
‘Universes All The Way Down’ was my first pro-sale and it went to Nature Futures. I feel like I got the dry humour right in that, and wanted to pay homage to Pratchett amongst other things while writing it. It’s a tone and rhythm I keep trying to catch again.
What effect has writing had on your life and/or those around you?
This is an odd one. My family is super supportive, and my wife adheres to the ‘fait accompli’ school of encouragement. No room for uncertainty.
I do get a range of other responses – from surprised encouragement through to puzzlement. Some of this is attached to my academic position – why spend time and effort on writing fiction given my job? I have a long list of answers for that but I don’t try too hard to respond. Such people won’t get it no matter what I say.
What are you currently working on, what’s coming out, and do you have any future writing goals?
I’m finalizing my novel and already started on the sequel. I’ll shop it around and learn in the process, get my fingers burned, make some mistakes, and kind of revel in all of it. Future goals – I want to see my work on bookshop shelves, and I want to just sit and write until I feel it flow. All day. Every day. With the occasional sandwich break, and maybe still take the kids to soccer/music/dance.
Where can we read more about you and your books?
I at least keep the bibliography up to date here:
And I am on bluesky here:
Final question:
Do you have a furry friend support crew? Who are they and how much do they distract you from writing?
Two dogs – Sherlock, our old man, and Enola, our crazy pup. Plus Mycroft the chair-loving cat. They are pretty good, expect Enola eats everything she can reach whether it is food or not, and Mycroft will occasionally hunt you down to bite your calves. Always the calves…
Thank you, Matt for sharing an insight into your writing life and good luck with your future writing endeavours.
That brings us to the end of today’s Author Spotlight. Learn more about Matt and his publications via the links above. Perhaps you’ll find your next great read.
Until next time, happy reading.
Pauline Yates 
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