Matthew R Davis
AUTHOR

Matthew R Davis

Literature & Fiction
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I'm an author and musician (plus sometime editor, visual artist, scriptwriter, composer, and all-round Renaissance man) based in Adelaide, South Australia. I've had over sixty short stories and poems published around the world thus far; I've always written, but for many years it came second to trying to establish a career in music. I write dark fiction, horror for the most part, though I take an eclectic angle to all things. My approach to writing is character-focused, broad-minded, and averse to standard tropes. I was shortlisted for a 2020 Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novelette ("Heritage Hill") and I won two categories in the 2019 Australian Shadows Awards: Best Short Story ("Steadfast Shadowsong") and the Paul Haines Award for Long Fiction ("Supermassive Black Mass"). My work has been shortlisted three other times for the Shadows Awards ("The Heart of the Mission", 2016; "This Impossible Gift", 2017; "Vision Thing", 2020), three times for the Aurealis Awards ("Andromeda Ascends", 2018; "Supermassive Black Mass", 2019; "Pilgrimage", 2019), and once for the Washington Science Fiction Association Small Press Award ("Heritage Hill", 2020). I also served as a reader and judge for the 2016 and 2017 Aurealis Awards — acting as Panel Convenor the second year — and for the 2018 and 2019 Australian Shadows Awards. My first collection of short stories, IF ONLY TONIGHT WE COULD SLEEP, was released by Things in the Well on January 31, 2020. My first novel, MIDNIGHT IN THE CHAPEL OF LOVE, was published by JournalStone on January 29, 2021. I've performed spoken word shows with punk poets Paroxysm Press, including three Adelaide Fringe gigs, and with the SA Writers Centre — the latter in the West Terrace Cemetery. I attended MAPS Film School in 2010 and since then I have been sporadically involved in short films and live videos as a scriptwriter, director, editor, producer, composer, grip, and (gasp!) actor. My most recent film work has been as an extra in a number of club scenes for Dick Dale's forthcoming splatterpunk feature RIBSPREADER. I play bass and other instruments, sing, write songs, edit videos, create album sleeves, and do all sorts of other things in the progressive/alternative rock/metal bands Blood Red Renaissance (on hiatus since 2013) and icecocoon. I've so far played on seven albums, three EPs, and seven singles, and I've gigged extensively with numerous bands and one-offs. I currently live in Somerton Park.
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