this is the author page of the supposedly creative writer matthew caprioli frye-castillo
*high five!
Yours truly in the parking lot otw to see P!nk & Sheryl Crow
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Matthew Frye-Castillo is the author of One Headlight: A Son’s Memoir, published by Cirque Press (2021) and re-issued by Volupté Press (2026, forthcoming). Born in San Diego and raised in Southcentral Alaska, he is a Lecturer of Professional Writing with CCE (tenure) at Lehman College, City University of New York.
Matthew is a multidisciplinary writer who has published creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry; his stage and screenplays have followed an LGBTQ+ retirement community in Florida, unpaid interns at a famous magazine, and star-crossed lovers in Alaska. He blogs about literature at Word After Word, is at work on a novel, and hopes to land a double axel one day.
His forthcoming collection, Unpassing: Essays on Race, Family, and the Archive looks at what happens when a DNA test, unknown family members, and a box of inherited documents rewrite everything you thought you knew about who you are. Part memoir, investigation, and cultural analysis, Unpassing asks what it means to claim a complex identity that you weren’t raised in and what archives owe – and don’t owe – those who look to them for answers.
Essays & Memoir
On the ‘Gays Who Kill’ Subgenre, Gay & Lesbian Review
When Silence Speaks Volumes: Jeannie Vanasco on a Complex Mother-Daughter Relationship, River Teeth
Finding Héctor, Little Patuxent Review
All That Beauty, OPOSSUM
On continually learning from Audre Lorde, Transformative Learning in the Humanities
How Books Shaped My Life as a Gay Escort, Prism & Pen
On Four Latine Authors Named Daniel, part 1 & part 2, Epiphany: A Literary Journal
Lord Knows, Chicken Soup for the Soul
Fiction & Poetry
I Went to Dartmouth, Newtown Literary
The Hate You Save May Be Your Own, Cirque Journal
How Do You Say a Word, Understory
Writing, Understory
Etta James, Best Emerging Poets 2018
Plays
Screen
Over the Rainbow
A half-hour comedy about five seniors in Florida battling to keep their LGBTQ+ retirement home open.
Listen to the Band
Hour-long limited series drama about a mother and son following their artistic dreams; based on the lives of Bette Nesmith Graham and Michael Nesmith of The Monkees.
Walking Down In Hand
Feature film following two queer teenagers in Anchorage, Alaska who are not supposed to fall in love.
Conversion
Stage
Russian Dressing
A 70-minute comedy about a group of unpaid interns at a famous magazine who decide it’s best not to unionize.
Dirty Rotten Twink
A 100-minute dramedy following the decades long friendship of five queer people who met while working at a sex club in their early 20s.
RUN-HIDE-FIGHT
A 70-minute drama about a college classroom during an active shooter drill.
master-slave
An 80-minute comedy asking what the Greek Gods would do once their job was automated.
Web
Hire Ed
A six-part comedic web series featuring an earnest adjunct whose interviews for a history professorship tend to implode.
One Headlight: A Memoir
One Headlight is a coming-of-age memoir about a mother and son driving through the 2002 St. Patrick's Day storm with one headlight, and about everything that storm comes to stand for: growing up gay in an evangelical Alaska household, the slow work of self-discovery, and the pull between the place that raised you and the life you go on to build. Written with humor and unflinching candor, it's a book about the people who see us before we can see ourselves.
Interviews & Profiles
The Riverdale Press by Ethan Stark-Miller
NPR’s Hometown Alaska by Kathleen McCoy
Pine Hills Review by Alex J. Tunney
A&U Magazine by Ruby Corner
University of Alaska by Matt Jardin
Conversation with Joe Okonwko at Astoria Bookshop
Reviews & Praise
“[An] inspirational story of resilience and fortitude” —Chelsea News New York
“An affecting and surprising remembrance about the responsibilities of parents and children.” —Kirkus
“Like no other book I have read. It will entertain you as it crushes you.” —Martha Amore, author of In the Quiet Season & co-editor of Building Fires in the Snow
“Depictions of working-class, poverty-level Alaska [that] counterbalance the usual tropes of Alaska as a sublime wilderness.” —Anchorage Daily News
“Quirky humor, bright language, and sharp emotional insight.” —Joe Okonkwo, author of Jazz Moon
“[A heartfelt coming-of-age memoir] …. One Headlight well illuminates the necessary pain of separating from our mothers to become who we are—and the way we continually return to them, and to who we were, to understand who that is.” — Red Hook Star-Revue
“More than another coming-of-age story. It is a love letter to his mother, Abby, a lively woman, who navigates the world with humor and humility, doing her best with the hand she was dealt, both for herself and for the son she so clearly adores.” — Lucian Childs, author of Dreaming Home
“A beautiful, moving queer coming-of-age memoir set in Alaska with a narrative voice that is funny, sensitive and emotionally sharp. For fans of Garrard Conley, Garth Greenwell and Brandon Taylor.” — Naheed Phiroze Patel, author of Mirror Made of Rain
Author Photos & Bios
Credit: Emil D. Cohen
Credit: Stacey Engels
Matthew Frye-Castillo is the author of One Headlight: A Memoir (Cirque Press, 2021) and a CCE Lecturer of Professional Writing at Lehman College, CUNY, where he directs the Program for Professional Communications. His essays, fiction, and journalism have appeared in the Paris Review Daily, Lambda Literary, Epiphany, the Gay & Lesbian Review, River Teeth, HuffPost, and Worn in New York, featured in the Netflix docuseries Worn Stories. He has held fellowships from the Sewanee Writers' Conference, the Mellon and Hertog Foundations, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. He lives in Astoria, Queens, with his husband, Adam.
Bio (Short):
Matthew Frye-Castillo is a writer, educator, and journalist based in Astoria, Queens, with roots in Southcentral Alaska and Los Angeles. He is the author of One Headlight: A Memoir (Cirque Press, 2021), which follows his family's survival through Alaska in an old Mustang with a single working headlight. He is currently at work on projects about karaoke and death, literary depictions of "gays who kill," and the recovery of lost family archives — subjects bound together by a lasting interest in critical theory and unlikely friendships.
His fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in Lambda Literary, Epiphany, the Gay & Lesbian Review, River Teeth, the Paris Review Daily, the Lindenwood Review, Newtown Literary, and Worn in New York, which was featured in the Netflix docuseries Worn Stories. A former arts reporter for the Anchorage Press and arts editor for the Red Hook Star-Revue, he has also written for the Anchorage Daily News, ESPN, HuffPost, and Bushwick Daily. His creative work has been supported by the Sewanee Writers' Conference, the Mellon and Hertog Foundations, StoryBoard, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
At Lehman College, CUNY, Matthew is a CCE Lecturer of Professional Writing and Director of the Program for Professional Communications, where he has built courses on emerging media, LGBTQ+ literature, and entrepreneurship for writers. He has directed the LGBTQ+ Collective and now leads the college's LGBTQ+ Literary series. Outside the classroom, he advises Native-owned firms on AI ethics and editorial strategy and has led studies on how college students actually use AI to write.
A proud MBA dropout, he holds an MFA from Hunter College and a publishing certificate from Columbia University, and studied at the University of Alaska Anchorage and Clark University. He lives in Astoria with his husband, Adam, and is quite good at figure skating.
Bio (Long):
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