My name is Matthew Clayfield and I am a lapsed journalist, occasional critic and screenwriter, and author of much unpublished fiction.
For the better part of my twenties and early thirties, I was a freelance foreign correspondent. I worked in more than thirty countries, specialising in first-person narrative journalism, political commentary, and travel writing. My journalism has appeared in The Australian, The Daily Beast, Politico, The Guardian, The Monthly, and more.
My screenwriting work includes the hour-long sci-fi Restoration (co-written with Stuart Willis and nominated for a 2015 Australian Writers’ Guild Award) and the journalism comedy Lord Jones Is Dead. I also wrote the screenplays for the short films How My Next Door Neighbour Discovered Life on Mars and Frog.
I have written two unpublished novels, A Death in Phnom Penh and The Man from Westralia, and am currently working on my third. My first-ever piece of published fiction, a short story named ‘Zheravna’, was published in Meanjin in 2025. If you’re an agent, editor or publisher, please drop me a line.
What do I write about?
Weariness Makes a Good Mattress is a Substack dedicated to literature, art, cinema, and travel.
The title comes from Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo, which is about a man who goes to visit his father for the first time and discovers a literal ghost town instead. The image I use to illustrate the newsletter is a detail from Australian artist William Dobell’s ‘Young man sleeping’. Along with the Peter Altenberg quote that I use to describe what I’m doing here, these references might give you some idea of the vibe you can expect going forward.
Thanks to the flexibility of my employers, I am able to work wherever I like. As a result, you can expect to read a combination of book and film criticism, dispatches from abroad, pieces about my process, and other assorted miscellany.
I endeavour to write at least one long-form piece of criticism—like my not very nice review of Anna Funder’s Wifedom—once or twice a month. I’m also trying to get a podcast off the ground, which will feature interviews with people much smarter than me talking about their areas of expertise.
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