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Matt Dovey

12:47pm, 26th September 2017

Five Years On: Some Messages to Baby Writer Matt

An old man with a pocket watchIt's been five years since I received my first rejection (and more on that at the end), and by sheer coincidence I sent my 300th submission the day before the anniversary, so this seems an excellent moment for some introspection.

Here's some messages to the me of five years ago, in the hopes that some of them save you some time and grief.

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TAGS: lessons, retrospective, waffle


3:44pm, 8th January 2016

Threnody for an Untouched Moon

(Yes, I just learnt a new word.)

Here is some excellent news: space exploration is bigger news than it has been for years. SpaceX are landing re-useable rockets. NASA have funding to land on Europa. President Obama has set a timeline for getting to Mars.

And the ESA wants to go back to the moon.

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TAGS: waffle


9:51pm, 17th November 2015

Fragmented Thoughts for a Fragmented World

Common sense dictates I should refrain from commenting on politics and religion.

Bollocks to that. Politics and religion are central to my thinking, and they'll come out in all my stories. I'm not going to pretend to not be me. Honestly and seriously, though--I don't mean any offence by any of the below. I'm just thinking out loud.

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TAGS: politics, waffle


10:40pm, 12th November 2015

Don't Cross the Streams

I may well regret committing to so much social media distraction. I fear that social media is catnip for writers: satisfying, addictive and wholly useless and unfulfilling.

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TAGS: waffle


10:00pm, 29th October 2015

Once Upon a Time

Everything has a beginning, if you sort of squint your eyes and don't look too closely and pretend you can't see all that other stuff that's in the way. This is one of those beginnings.

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TAGS: waffle


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About

Matt Dovey is a writer of short speculative fiction. He is very tall, very British, and probably drinking a cup of tea right now. His surname rhymes with “Dopey”, but any other similarities to the dwarf are purely coincidental. More →

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You're not a person, they say, circling. You're one of Them. From the other side.

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When the intercom on his desk buzzed, Marc's head snapped up, instantly awake. He'd been dozing in his chair. His finger stabbed the button that told the boss he was on his way. He stood up and straightened his rumpled gray suit before glancing at his watch. One seventeen AM. It figures. The boss tried to cut him as much slack as he could, but humans just couldn't keep the same pace as the Vrith, who came from the sunny side of a tidally locked planet and didn't sleep at all.

Loyalty Test by Andrew Gudgel
Escape Pod #649

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Yes, you're right. I can see how the ships look like the black skeletons of birds, burned and splayed across the sky. No, no, it makes sense. I just had to squint my eyes first to see it, that's all.

The Lies I've Told to Keep You Safe