I'm a Speculative Fiction writer with a particular love for the weird, dark, literary and Kafkaesque. I was raised in a near-mythical rural corner of Wales, nowadays hangin' about in London.
Check out my socials!
- @MordecaiOne on Twitter/X
- @MattMordecai on Substack
Be sure to follow/subscribe. So many writerly accounts on X are pitched towards other writers ("Friday follow-back!!" etc); I try to keep mine reader-centric. I post thoughts on dark/weird SF books that I've read - or want to read. And I post updates about my own stories, of course.
Talking of my own stories, here's what I've got out into the world so far—with plenty more on the way:
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Short story: Tunnel Rats "There's aliens living in the train tunnels near Llandewi; it’s what I tell Janet on our first and only proper date." Published by the awesome Welsh SF & Fantasy magazine Gwyllion on May 1, 2025 - in ebook and print editions. |
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Short story: Barbarossa of Seville 4 Sci-Fi comedy with some dark themes! Published by Freedom Fiction Journal on 3 June 2024.
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Just a short piece, exploring poetic language and meter in prose form. Digs into liminality in time rather than space. Published by 101 Words on 24 March 2024.
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Flash fiction: I dug NY It's a small world -- and a big, big universe. Published by Sci-Fi Shorts on 20 December 2023.
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Flash fiction: Interview With the Vainglorious Krongor When being the face of galactic terror ceases to be fun... Published by Sci-Fi Shorts on 10 March 2023. |
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Short story: Seven Irrational Things A tale of cosmic terror with multidimensional psionic parasites and a young concert pianist. (And it's kind of fun). Published by Soft Star Magazine on 8 March 2023 in their "Wormhole" issue (in print and online). |
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Here's an existential sort of 100-word "drabble" published at the appropriately named TheDrabble.com. |
For the latest updates, please follow my writing diary on Twitter/X and Substack!
Earlier stuff
My first published story (a flash fiction piece, writing as Matt Stephens) was back in 2011, before I was consumed by my IT "career" -- Grim Love Bus, published by the awesome people at Antipodean SF.
I've co-authored 5 IT books, also writing as Matt Stephens. They are: Extreme Programming Refactored (a quasi-satire on a real software development practice), Use Case Driven Object Modeling with UML, Agile Development with the ICONIX Process, Design Driven Testing, and most recently Parallel Agile. For PA, I was honoured to work with the late, truly great Barry Boehm.