Matt Gallagher | |
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Gallagher at West Point, February 2017
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Born |
Reno, Nevada |
February 24, 1983
Occupation | Novelist, short story writer |
Citizenship | American |
Alma mater | Wake Forest University, Columbia University |
Matt Gallagher (born 1983) is an American author, former U.S. Army captain and veteran of the Iraq War. Gallagher has written on a variety of subjects, mainly contemporary war fiction and non-fiction. He first became known for his war memoir Kaboom (2010), which tells of his and his scout platoon's experiences during the Iraq War. He works as a writing instructor at Words After War, a literary nonprofit devoted to bringing veterans and civilians together to study conflict literature.
In 2015, Gallagher was featured in Vanity Fair alongside Elliot Ackerman, Maurice Decaul, Phil Klay, Kevin Powers and Brandon Willitts, as the voices of a new generation of American war literature. Among other media, he's appeared on CBS News Sunday Morning, PBS NewsHour, BBC News and NPR's "The Diane Rehm Show."
Gallagher was interviewed in September 2016 at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan by General (Retired) David H. Petraeus. In January 2017, Senator Elizabeth Warren read his Boston Globe op-ed "Trump Rejects the Muslims Who Helped Us" on the U.S. Senate Floor.
Gallagher's debut novel Youngblood was published in February 2016 by Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.Youngblood has been met with widespread critical acclaim, receiving positive reviews and features in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Esquire, The Wall Street Journal and Vogue, and others. It was selected as a finalist for the 2016 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for fiction.
Gallagher was born in Reno, Nevada, to attorneys Deborah Scott Gallagher and Dennis Gallagher. He and his brother Luke attended Brookfield School and Bishop Manogue High School, where Matt edited the school newspaper and ran cross country and track. He graduated in 2001.