Matthew Woodman, MA, MFA

BIOGRAPHY

Matthew Woodman has taught composition, advanced technical communication, introduction to literature, and creative writing courses at CSUB since 2000. During that time, he was also the co-author of Runner Life, the textbook used for First-Year Seminar courses from 2008-2017, and the contributing editor for six community-based anthologies, most recently Writing Covid (2020). He has organized collaborations between CSUB creative writing students and the Bakersfield Museum of Art for Art after Dark publications and performances, served as the 2018 Walter Stiern Library Writer-in-Residence, and was awarded the inaugural Outstanding Lecturer Award for 2018-2019. Beyond his work at CSUB, Woodman was named the 2018-2023 Kern County Poet Laureate and currently serves as a board member for Kern Poetry Foundation. He was awarded the 2024 Puerto del Sol Poetry Prize--judged by Diana Khoi Nguyen—for his poem "Park Fire Minor Arcana," and his essay on Rufino Tamayo’s mural "Prometheus Bringing Fire to Mankind” was published in UNESCO Art Collection: Selected Works (2021). He has led writing workshops for Writers of Kern, Mt. San Antonio Writers’ Weekend. and Central Coast Writers Conference, and his poems, fiction, and creative nonfiction have appeared widely, including in the journals Sonora Review, Fourteen Hills, Juked, and The Moth.