Thea Matthews

Thea Matthews writes on morality, survival, horror, and the complexities of being human. Originally from San Francisco, California, she holds an MFA in Creative Writing–Poetry from New York University and a BA in Sociology from UC Berkeley. Her work has appeared in Kweli Journal, The Atlantic, ZYZZYVA, Colorado Review, The Common, Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, The Massachusetts Review, The New Republic, Alta Journal, among others.

Matthews is the author of Grime (City Lights Books, 2025), winner of the 2026 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award, and Unearth [The Flowers] (Red Light Lit Press, 2020), which was named one of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Indie Poetry Books of 2020. Her teaching and mentorship span creative writing workshops, undergraduate courses at New York University, coaching for adolescent writers, public programming in the arts, and delivering lectures and seminars at universities across the United States. In 2023, she served as a poet-in-residence at the Museum of the African Diaspora and as a programming curator for the UC Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.