Matthew Forester

Matt Forester was born and raised near Cherry Valley, Arkansas on a farm. He received two bachelor’s degrees (Professional and Technical Writing and French) and a master’s degree (Technical and Expository Writing) from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. His research project, “Gender Assumptions of First-Year Composition Students” placed first in the humanities division of the Graduate Student Research Forum.

He also studied dance and was a member of the Arkansas Dance Theater. In addition, he performed with Ballet Arkansas in several productions including the Nutcracker and Gaité Parisienne.

Mr. Forester completed the coursework and passed qualifying exams for a PhD in English at the University of South Florida in Tampa. While there, he was one of three out of sixty teachers presented with an Excellence in Teaching Composition award. He has presented his scholarship at multiple national conferences from San Francisco to Boothbay Harbor, Maine. He also presented at an international conference in Brussels, Belgium.

Mr. Forester reviewed a book, The Rhetoric of Religious Cults: Terms of Use and Abuse by Annabelle Mooney, for the Cultic Studies Review, which landed him an interview alongside the author on BBC Radio 4’s Word of Mouth program.

His Southern Gothic novel, Beneath the Water Lilies, (available on Amazon) was a finalist for the Claymore Award at Killer Nashville. The screenplay version, which he also wrote, was a semi-finalist for Creative World Awards and the Hot Springs Film Festival Screen-writing Competition and was a quarter-finalist for the CineStory Retreat and Fellowship Competition. In his writing, he seeks to create characters who disrupt the comfortable and contented in delightfully frightening ways. His second novel, The Calling of Vanny Carver, is a psychological thriller about a female serial killer raised in a patriarchal religious cult who obeys the voice of Mother God instructing her to kill men and the women who acquiesce to them.

Mr. Forester taught writing courses at the University of South Florida, University of Florida, University of Central Arkansas, and Phillips Community College before moving into secondary education where he has taught for the past nine years. He enjoys kayaking, reading, and playing the piano. He is thrilled to be a teacher here at the Institute for the Creative Arts and looks forward to a wonderful year of learning and growth.