Matt Briggs was born in 1970, in Seattle, Washington, United States. He is a son of Ronald C. Briggs and Mildred M. (Huxley) Briggs. Matt's working-class, hippie parents, who cultivated and sold cannabis (drug), raised him in the Snoqualmie Valley.
In his early years, Briggs, after attending a high school, joined the United States Army Reserve. His unit was deployed to the Gulf War and Matt served as a laboratory technician in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
In 1995, after his return to the United States, Matt received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Washington. Also, he studied the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University, graduating with a Master of Arts degree in 2000.
During the period from 1997 till 2003, Briggs held a post of an editor at The Raven Chronicles. Between 2001 and 2003, he produced The Rendezvous Reading Series. Later, beginning in 2003 until 2005, Matt acted as a writer-in-residence at Richard Hugo House. There, Briggs served as a writing classes teacher for the chronically ill at Gilda’s Club and the Polyclinic, produced literary events and offered open hours to the community.
In April 2005, Matt, together with Matthew Stadler, organized the Unassociated Writers Conference and Dance Party in order to promote an alternative literary culture of zines, micro presses and project-based publishing. Two years later, in 2007, Matt acted as a curator for the Jack Straw Writers series.
During his career, Briggs has published his work in different magazines, including 5_Trope, The Clackamas Review, The Seattle Review and Zyzzyva. Also, he has performed at Bumbershoot and What the Heck Fest.
Currently, Matt lives and works in the Seattle area.
Matt Briggs is a well-known novelist and short story writer. He is known for such works, as "Shoot the Buffalo", "The Remains of River Names", "Misplaced Alice", "The Moss Gatherers" and others.
The "Shoot the Buffalo" was made a Finalist for the Washington State Book Award in Fiction in 2006.
During his career, Briggs received several awards, including the King County Arts Commission Publication Award in 1998, American Book Award in 2006 and Genius Award for Literature.
(In the shadow of the Boeing plant, where the first commer...)
2013(The novel is told in twelve linked stories, each of which...)
2000(The summer Aldous Bohm turns nine, his parents move to th...)
2005("Virility Rituals of North American Teenage Boys" tells s...)
2013Matt was influenced by Raymond Carver after reading Carver’s "Where I’m Calling From" and by other short story writers like Alice Munro and Andre Dubus.
Matt married Lisa Purdy on October 12, 1996. Their marriage produced one child - Riley Ella.
