Martin Seay
Fiction
Chicago, IL
Martin Seay’s debut novel The Mirror Thief, published by Melville House in 2016, won a 2016 Book of the Year award from the Chicago Writers Association, was chosen as the best debut of 2016 by the Chicago Review of Books, and was included among Publishers Weekly‘s and NPR’s lists of the year’s best books, as well as the New York Times Book Review‘s list of notable books. It was also selected as a Winter/Spring 2016 Indies Introduce title by the American Booksellers Association, and was long-listed for the 2016 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize.
Martin’s fiction, essays, and criticism have appeared in a variety of publications, including Gargoyle, Joyland, the Gettysburg Review, the Believer, and MAKE. He holds undergraduate degrees from Trinity University and an MFA in creative writing from Queens University of Charlotte, North Carolina. He currently works as an administrative assistant for the Village of Wheeling, Illinois, where his duties include issuing liquor licenses.
Martin was also a 2005–2006 fiction fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. He plans to use his time at Ragdale to work on his second novel, provisionally titled All Our Strength and All Our Sweetness.
Originally from Texas, Martin lives in the Edgewater neighborhood of Chicago with his spouse, the writer Kathleen Rooney.
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