We’re pleased to welcome M. Bartley Seigel as the new book review editor of Words without Borders.

Matt comes to us with experience as poet, writer, literary editor and publisher, journalist, and teacher. He is the author of This Is What They Say (poetry, Typecast Publishing, 2012), and his writing has appeared in literary magazines such as DIAGRAM, H_NGM_N, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Thrush, among many others. Matt was also the founding editor of PANK Magazine, which he co-published with Roxane Gay from 2006 until December of last year when both he and Roxane retired from that project.

Matt grew up near Lakeview, Michigan, in rural Montcalm County, central mitten. He received his BA in journalism from Eastern Michigan University in 1998, traveled through Europe and North Africa for a spell after graduating, then briefly worked as a journalist in State College, Pennsylvania, before returning to graduate school. He received his MFA in creative writing from the Pennsylvania State University in 2004, followed by another year serving as the associate director of Penn State’s Undergraduate Writing Center. He began teaching at Michigan Technological University in 2005, where he is currently an associate professor of creative writing and literature. He recently finished a one-year sabbatical in Estonia, where he taught creative writing and American literature at the University of Tartu, and was also a Tartu artist-in-residence where he began work on his second book. Matt lives with his wife, Marika, his two children, Annika and Indrek, and a cattle dog named Iggy in Houghton in the northwestern Upper Peninsula of Michigan near the shore of Lake Superior.

You can reach Matt at mbartley@wordswithoutborders.org, or follow him on Twitter @mbartleyseigel.