Matthew Clayfield
@mclayfield.bsky.social
Lapsed journalist. Occasional critic and screenwriter. Author of much unpublished fiction.
Fourteen years ago today. open.substack.com/pub/matthewc...
Does Christopher Hitchens still matter?
Two from the archives on the anniversary of his death
open.substack.com
December 11, 2025 at 10:55 AM
Fourteen years ago today. open.substack.com/pub/matthewc...
Has anyone else pointed out that JAY KELLY is basically just STARDUST MEMORIES?
December 6, 2025 at 9:44 PM
Has anyone else pointed out that JAY KELLY is basically just STARDUST MEMORIES?
Reposted by Matthew Clayfield
Sitting on the train listening to two women hate read the synopsis of an old school friend’s book. This is the true miracle of publishing. The envy. The bitterness. The secret purchase later and the denial they did it until one day they break down crying cause they always wanted to write a book.
December 4, 2025 at 11:32 AM
Sitting on the train listening to two women hate read the synopsis of an old school friend’s book. This is the true miracle of publishing. The envy. The bitterness. The secret purchase later and the denial they did it until one day they break down crying cause they always wanted to write a book.
Reposted by Matthew Clayfield
Today we launch a new @empirepoduk.bsky.social mini-series to mark the beginning of the Ashes:
A FOREIGN FIELD:
THE HISTORY OF COLONIAL CRICKET
With Tim Wigmore @timwig
Author of Test Cricket: A History
Winner of this year's William Hill Sports Book of the Year
share.google/rukQ1zLzMQT8...
A FOREIGN FIELD:
THE HISTORY OF COLONIAL CRICKET
With Tim Wigmore @timwig
Author of Test Cricket: A History
Winner of this year's William Hill Sports Book of the Year
share.google/rukQ1zLzMQT8...
November 26, 2025 at 3:51 AM
Today we launch a new @empirepoduk.bsky.social mini-series to mark the beginning of the Ashes:
A FOREIGN FIELD:
THE HISTORY OF COLONIAL CRICKET
With Tim Wigmore @timwig
Author of Test Cricket: A History
Winner of this year's William Hill Sports Book of the Year
share.google/rukQ1zLzMQT8...
A FOREIGN FIELD:
THE HISTORY OF COLONIAL CRICKET
With Tim Wigmore @timwig
Author of Test Cricket: A History
Winner of this year's William Hill Sports Book of the Year
share.google/rukQ1zLzMQT8...
On my recent trek into the Himalayas. open.substack.com/pub/matthewc...
To Kheerganga and back
A postcard from the Parvati Valley
open.substack.com
November 20, 2025 at 10:14 AM
On my recent trek into the Himalayas. open.substack.com/pub/matthewc...
The worst spokesman for a Ken Burns film is Ken Burns. He's always spoken in platitudes and bromides, but now that he's plugging his Revolution film he's also spouting straight-up nonsense. I just heard him call it the most important event since the birth of Christ. Come on, man.
November 8, 2025 at 12:35 AM
The worst spokesman for a Ken Burns film is Ken Burns. He's always spoken in platitudes and bromides, but now that he's plugging his Revolution film he's also spouting straight-up nonsense. I just heard him call it the most important event since the birth of Christ. Come on, man.
Here's my angry, hopeful, self-loathing little postcard from last week's Ubud Writers & Readers Festival. open.substack.com/pub/matthewc...
November 7, 2025 at 12:57 PM
Here's my angry, hopeful, self-loathing little postcard from last week's Ubud Writers & Readers Festival. open.substack.com/pub/matthewc...
Reposted by Matthew Clayfield
I set out to write something short about Adam Lindsay Gordon. Things didn't work out that way. open.substack.com/pub/matthewc...
A wild colonial boy
Adam Lindsay Gordon in Mount Gambier and Port MacDonnell
open.substack.com
October 27, 2025 at 11:01 PM
I set out to write something short about Adam Lindsay Gordon. Things didn't work out that way. open.substack.com/pub/matthewc...
I set out to write something short about Adam Lindsay Gordon. Things didn't work out that way. open.substack.com/pub/matthewc...
A wild colonial boy
Adam Lindsay Gordon in Mount Gambier and Port MacDonnell
open.substack.com
October 27, 2025 at 11:01 PM
I set out to write something short about Adam Lindsay Gordon. Things didn't work out that way. open.substack.com/pub/matthewc...
Reposted by Matthew Clayfield
I spend a year plotting a mystery novel and then this happens.
October 20, 2025 at 1:56 AM
I spend a year plotting a mystery novel and then this happens.
Just went through the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival program and drew up my four-day plan of attack. As always, I’m making an effort to avoid speakers I could see elsewhere and trying to focus on local writers. I’m hoping to walk away having had my horizons expanded a little.
October 16, 2025 at 5:57 AM
Just went through the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival program and drew up my four-day plan of attack. As always, I’m making an effort to avoid speakers I could see elsewhere and trying to focus on local writers. I’m hoping to walk away having had my horizons expanded a little.
Just went through the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival program and drew up my four-day plan of attack. As always, I’m making an effort to avoid speakers I could see elsewhere and trying to focus on local writers. I’m hoping to walk away having had my horizons expanded a little.
October 16, 2025 at 5:57 AM
Just went through the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival program and drew up my four-day plan of attack. As always, I’m making an effort to avoid speakers I could see elsewhere and trying to focus on local writers. I’m hoping to walk away having had my horizons expanded a little.
This is at once both lovely and rather sad. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/13/b...
Tim Curry Isn’t Done Yet
www.nytimes.com
October 13, 2025 at 9:22 AM
This is at once both lovely and rather sad. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/13/b...
Reposted by Matthew Clayfield
Terrific!
Following pieces on M*A*S*H and CHEERS, I'm capping off my unofficial trilogy about classic sitcoms with one on FRASIER.
As an aside, I probably wouldn’t advise watching thirty-three seasons of television in quick succession. It's bad for you.
open.substack.com/pub/matthewc...
As an aside, I probably wouldn’t advise watching thirty-three seasons of television in quick succession. It's bad for you.
open.substack.com/pub/matthewc...
October 12, 2025 at 1:44 PM
Terrific!
"Usually, the term [post-American] is used to refer to the decline of American influence abroad, but [Pynchon] clearly has something more domestic in mind: a change in the national character resulting from the cancellation of the twentieth century he grew up in..." newleftreview.org/sidecar/post...
Ryan Ruby, Post-American Blues — Sidecar
On Thomas Pynchon.
newleftreview.org
October 13, 2025 at 5:01 AM
"Usually, the term [post-American] is used to refer to the decline of American influence abroad, but [Pynchon] clearly has something more domestic in mind: a change in the national character resulting from the cancellation of the twentieth century he grew up in..." newleftreview.org/sidecar/post...
"The best book I ever read about film editing is the correspondence between George Sand and Flaubert. Because when they're writing about writing, I think they're writing about film editing." www.dissentmagazine.org/online_artic...
Close Attention - Dissent Magazine
An interview with Frederick Wiseman.
www.dissentmagazine.org
October 13, 2025 at 4:22 AM
"The best book I ever read about film editing is the correspondence between George Sand and Flaubert. Because when they're writing about writing, I think they're writing about film editing." www.dissentmagazine.org/online_artic...
Following pieces on M*A*S*H and CHEERS, I'm capping off my unofficial trilogy about classic sitcoms with one on FRASIER.
As an aside, I probably wouldn’t advise watching thirty-three seasons of television in quick succession. It's bad for you.
open.substack.com/pub/matthewc...
As an aside, I probably wouldn’t advise watching thirty-three seasons of television in quick succession. It's bad for you.
open.substack.com/pub/matthewc...
October 12, 2025 at 2:28 AM
Following pieces on M*A*S*H and CHEERS, I'm capping off my unofficial trilogy about classic sitcoms with one on FRASIER.
As an aside, I probably wouldn’t advise watching thirty-three seasons of television in quick succession. It's bad for you.
open.substack.com/pub/matthewc...
As an aside, I probably wouldn’t advise watching thirty-three seasons of television in quick succession. It's bad for you.
open.substack.com/pub/matthewc...
Reposted by Matthew Clayfield
They say literature is dead, but right now I am reading the complaints people have written cause László Krasznahorkai won a nobel and someone else did not.
October 10, 2025 at 12:38 AM
They say literature is dead, but right now I am reading the complaints people have written cause László Krasznahorkai won a nobel and someone else did not.
Reposted by Matthew Clayfield
"in the age of ChatGPT, there is almost something heroic about never shutting the fuck up about The Melancholy of Resistance." newrepublic.com/article/2015...
The Nobel Prize in Literature Is Boring Now
László Krasznahorkai, who was awarded the prize on Thursday, is a brilliant novelist and consummate laureate. But has the Swedish Academy lost its sense of fun?
newrepublic.com
October 9, 2025 at 8:55 PM
"in the age of ChatGPT, there is almost something heroic about never shutting the fuck up about The Melancholy of Resistance." newrepublic.com/article/2015...
Reposted by Matthew Clayfield
ok I forgive the new republic for not doing their preview as this is very good. JCO is one of the all-time posters and I am only sorry her poison ivy hiking-in-sandals feet tweet wasn't mentioned.) newrepublic.com/article/2015...
October 9, 2025 at 9:14 PM
ok I forgive the new republic for not doing their preview as this is very good. JCO is one of the all-time posters and I am only sorry her poison ivy hiking-in-sandals feet tweet wasn't mentioned.) newrepublic.com/article/2015...
"[A]t long last, [men] have their own Nobel Laureate [...] That's right—for the first time in history, a man has won the Nobel Prize. That sound you hear? It's a graduate student sobbing with joy. Big, manly sobs." @alexshephard.bsky.social doing what he does best. newrepublic.com/article/2015...
The Nobel Prize in Literature Is Boring Now
László Krasznahorkai, who was awarded the prize on Thursday, is a brilliant novelist and consummate laureate. But has the Swedish Academy lost its sense of fun?
newrepublic.com
October 10, 2025 at 9:21 AM
"[A]t long last, [men] have their own Nobel Laureate [...] That's right—for the first time in history, a man has won the Nobel Prize. That sound you hear? It's a graduate student sobbing with joy. Big, manly sobs." @alexshephard.bsky.social doing what he does best. newrepublic.com/article/2015...
Krasznahorkai finally got it. Very pleased.
October 9, 2025 at 11:07 AM
Krasznahorkai finally got it. Very pleased.
I know I say it every year, but the best part of the Nobel Prize for Literature really is the confusion and heartbreak of the Murakami fans.
October 9, 2025 at 10:58 AM
I know I say it every year, but the best part of the Nobel Prize for Literature really is the confusion and heartbreak of the Murakami fans.
Sitting in a quiet cinema, waiting for ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER to begin, listening to some dope tell his neighbour about the "trained bear" in THE REVENANT. His neighbour is glad to hear that THE REVENANT is a film. She thought he meant that DiCaprio had been attacked by a bear in real life.
October 9, 2025 at 5:10 AM
Sitting in a quiet cinema, waiting for ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER to begin, listening to some dope tell his neighbour about the "trained bear" in THE REVENANT. His neighbour is glad to hear that THE REVENANT is a film. She thought he meant that DiCaprio had been attacked by a bear in real life.