Meet the Author: Matthew Neill Null

Join us at WordPlay on November 19 to meet Matthew Neill Null, a native of West Virginia and author of the historical novel Floodgate. The book is in stock now at WordPlay and will be available for purchase and signing at the event.

About the book:
In a remote corner of West Virginia in the 1960s, former coal miner Lance Drennen takes a job as an overseer for the construction of an immense flood-control dam, which will drown 2,800 acres of land that have been in his and other local families for generations. When Lance witnesses a terrible accident and discovers irregularities on the site that are guaranteed to line the pockets of the company and the local government, he must decide whether or not he will become a whistle-blower.

Floodgate explores the social and economic upheavals of the era—labor unrest, political and corporate corruption, persecution of Communists, the devastation of the environment—and their powerful impact on powerless communities. It is a story of loyalty to family and community, moral responsibility for personal choices, corporate greed and environmental destruction, and the depths and limits of love.

About the author:
Matthew Neill Null is a recipient of the Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Mary McCarthy Prize, the O. Henry Award, the Pushcart Prize, and the Michener–Copernicus Society of America Award. He holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and was a fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. His novel Honey from the Lion was short listed for the L.D. and LaVerne Harrell Clark Fiction Prize, and his story collection Allegheny Front was named a finalist for Foreword’s INDIE collection of the year. He is an associate professor at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.