Matthew Sharpe is a U.S.

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 novelist and short story writer.

Born in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, but grew up in a small town in Connecticut.

Sharpe graduated from Oberlin College

Oberlin College

Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, noteworthy for having been the first American institution of higher learning to regularly admit female and black students. Connected to the college is the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the oldest continuously operating...

 in Ohio. Afterwards, he worked at US Magazine until he went back to school at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

, where he pursued an MFA. Since then, he has been teaching creative writing

Creative writing

Creative writing is considered to be any writing, fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, and technical forms of literature. Works which fall into this category include novels, epics, short stories, and poems...

 at various institutions including Columbia University, Bard College

Bard College

Bard College, founded in 1860 as "St. Stephen's College", is a small four-year liberal arts college located in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.-Location:...

, the New College of Florida

New College of Florida

New College of Florida is a public liberal arts college located in Sarasota, Florida. It was founded originally as a private institution and is now an autonomous honors college of the State University System of Florida.-History:...

, and Wesleyan University

Wesleyan University

Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and...

. Sharpe says he started writing fiction at age ten but was finally inspired and encouraged to be a writer after reading Sam Shepard

Sam Shepard

Sam Shepard is an American playwright, actor, and television and film director. He is the author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child...

's play La Turista

La Turista

La Turista is a play by the American playwright Sam Shepard, first performed in New York in 1967. The title refers to the most common illness among tourists. The two main characters are Salem and Kent, which are also the name of cigarettes. It is a two act dramatic play. The first act takes place...

when he was 21.

External links

• the Village Voice reviews The Sleeping Father
• Matthew Sharpe interviews Lynne Tillman
  Lynne Tillman
  Lynne Tillman is a novelist, short story writer, and cultural critic. She is currently Professor/Writer-in-Residence in the Department of English at the University at Albany and is the author of five novels, three collections of short stories, one collection of essays, and two other nonfiction...
  
  
• Matthew Sharpe interviews Linh Dinh
  Linh Dinh
  Linh Dinh is a Vietnamese-American poet, fiction writer, translator, and photographer. He was a 1993 Pew Fellow.-Biography:...
  
  
• the Washington Post reviews Jamestown