Writer Spotlight: Matthew Rettino
Welcome to the 29th installment of Writer Spotlight. This week’s focus is Matthew Rettino. I’ve reviewed 12 of Rettino’s pieces, one of them individually on InkFoundry’s “Get WYSR” feed. Another will be forthcoming in a week or two once the story is published online.
(In case you didn’t know, InkFoundry is a wonderful and free resource that aggregates short fiction and poetry pieces!)
Recurring Themes:
Time
Mythology / Gods
History
Sacrifice
Day One - Sep 3
“The Goddess in Him” | WYSR Review
Kurghan longs to return to ancient Sicily and for his son to learn the ways of the warrior.
It’s always Christmas in Saint Rudolph. Even in August. There’s nothings strange about it.
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
These two stories seem pretty different to me.
Individually:
“The Goddess in Him” This story is so damn powerful. It includes themes of gender expression / gender roles explored, a father’s expectations on his child, time travel, ancient Sicily, and more. I cannot recommend this story enough!
“The Reindeer Game” This is a horror flash with themes of Christmas and sacrificial magic.
Day Two - Sep 4
3. “In the Ruins of Shambhala”
Amar specializes in neutralizing bombs.
4. “The Risen City” | (Advance Review) - Look for this story in NewMyths in mid September!
“Farah Dukakis never thought Atlantis would've been quite so muddy.”
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
Both of these stories center around ancient ruins.
Individually:
“In the Ruins of Shambhala” This story has a bomb specialist and a reverence for the gods, the latter of which reminded me of “The Goddess in Him.”
“The Risen City” This story includes themes on communicating with gods, uncovering ancient secrets, and Atlantean lore.
Day Three - Sep 5
How do objects enter eternity?
Mourning the loss of a grandfather through the movies watched together.
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
These poems seemed pretty different to me.
Individually:
“Bog Sacrifice” This short poem made me think about a lot of different things! Love the concept of an object needing to lose its usefulness to enter eternity. I also enjoyed the sense of time passing we get from the list of broken items, from swords to missiles. There is also a recurring theme of sacrifice as seen in “Reindeer Game.”
“Stupid Movies” This poem has so much heart packed into it. The protagonist wondering what their loved one’s last memory was, based on the movies they watched, is so bittersweet.
Day Four - Sep 6
“The deity carries the Universe on his biner /”
8. “Saint Francis of the Amazon”
“We signed a pact too quickly / with dice-rolling nature.”
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
These two poems seem to both touch on the existential nature of time.
Individually:
“The Ineffable Beta” This poem (I think, I’m not always the best at understanding poetry!) seems to consider the personality of the divine, or “the deity carrying the Universe” as a beta, which to me, could mean several differing things. Beta, as in alpha/beta, or beta as in the fish? But the themes of divinity in this reminded me of “The Goddess in Him,” “Shambhala,” and “The Risen City.”
“Saint Francis of the Amazon” This poem seems to be about how nature will eventually win in the end.
Day Five - Sep 7
“From inception centre to edge of bark /”
10. “Back Home”
“Rain showers the bus stands /”
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
These two poems seemed different to me.
Individually:
“Dendrochronology” This poem details the nature of dendrochronology. It is interesting that felling the tree allows science to find out the history of the tree itself. Hmm, this might share a theme with “Bog Sacrifice” in that the usefulness of the object needs to be lost to enter eternity. I also see a recurring theme about history, as noted in “Risen City” and “Ruins of Shambhala” and “The Goddess in Him.” I also learned the meaning of ecotopography because of this poem :)
“Back Home” A short poem with sensory details.
Day Six - Sep 8
All my paths have led to Knossos / to this site, this stretch of soil.
12. “Horologium”
“Descend from mountaintop glaciers and track the running stream.”
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
These two pieces include themes of long periods of passing time / its existential nature, which I’ve also noted in several pieces above.
Individually:
“Sir Arthur Evans” This poem had me looking up things! Who Sir Arthur Evans was, Knossus, and the definition of rhizome. An author who has me looking up definitions is always gonna get my approval. Anyway - this poem includes a theme about ancient ruins, as mentioned in my notes above on several of Rettino’s pieces. There is also a kind of palimpsest going on, as Sir Arthur in the poem mentions, “my maps have become the labyrinth.” I also LOVED this line: “The very paths along which I sought truth / now imprison it.”
“Horologium” This piece was full of vivid imagery and themes of nature and time passing, along with grief. The nature theme reminded me of “St. Francis.” Time, itself, doesn’t seem to be the healing element, here. I especially loved the message of the last paragraph, which seems to be about allowing “[the garden to] carry you through.”
Emmie’s Personal Favorite: “The Goddess in Him”
Interview Questions
What are the themes you tend to return to the most in your work overall? Why do think that is?
Rettino: I love returning to ideas of how we imagine the past and how our preconceptions about history can become subverted. It comes up not only in my short stories but in poems like “Sir Arthur Evans.”
2. What character(s) in these pieces do you relate to the most?
Rettino: Each of my characters are different from me while also sharing my experiences. Kurgan in “The Goddess in Him” is unlike me in many ways—he’s from another millennium, another culture—but I’ve also experienced what it’s like for a family member to come out as trans and non-binary. I enjoyed playing with expectations in showing that, in this apparently macho ancient warrior’s worldview, trans/non-binary people are already perfectly normal, even revered.
I’m not an archaeologist or working in donor relations, but I enjoyed writing Farah Dukakis’s character in “The Risen City” because I was looking into grant writing and nonprofit work at the time, and I thought it would be different to write a story in which someone working in donor relations for a heritage conservation organization has to deal with the fantastic.
3. How has your writing evolved since you began?
Rettino: I often start a story inspired by a setting or a plot, but I’ve come to realize stories with strong characters are the ones that usually grab the editor’s attention. I’m gradually learning how to write character stories that are still set in exciting locales with the kind of action I enjoy.
4. Do you tend to start writing a story idea out of a particular element, like character, setting, or point of view?
Rettino: “The Goddess in Him” was inspired completely by Kurgan’s character. I developed an impression of him by literally writing about what items he had inside his desk drawer and the kinds of things he kept in his office: details like the laptop he uses for Scythian jewellery design and the ancient bow-and-arrow in his closet. I changed some details, but his character became vivid, and it became just a question of asking what story to tell about this temporal immigrant.
With “The Risen City,” setting came first. I had read the account in Plato of the Greek ships that sail beyond Gibraltar to find a sea of mud, the traces of sunken Atlantis. I was inspired to depict Atlantis as a muddy, grimy place rather than a glittering city. That mud later became a metaphor for how Dukakis feels trapped by her work on the island, and I had the key to her character there, with the texture of the setting serving as an analogy for the mood I was aiming for.
5. What short fiction author do you look up to? Why?
Rettino: I admire Steve Toase’s Dirt Under My Skin, his collection of archaeological weird tales. I can only dream of having his first-hand knowledge of archaeology, which he uses to add realism to stories about cursed dig pits and faery excavations. I borrowed the overall plot structure of his story “Horn and Hoof” for my story “The Risen City.” My story is more expansive and kind of outlandish while his is so tightly plotted and grounded in the real frustrations archaeologists face. I wish I could tell a succinct story with the same authenticity.
6. Anything else you’d like to say about your work?
Rettino: I’m working right now on several adventure stories surrounding my archaeologist-in-training protagonist Tara Marlow. She’s the hero of my novel-on-submission but I’m also hoping that one day I can share some of her earlier adventures. Think of her as a more modern Indiana Jones, someone who wants to do archaeology the right way but also has to reckon with her family’s criminal present and past.
7. Do you have any piece, listed here or otherwise, that you would like to promote?
My cyberpunk story set in a post-apocalyptic Montreal, “The Métro Pirates,” is forthcoming in the anthology Unréal, so keep an eye out for it when the anthology is published. I had lots of fun writing it and my dream is for someone to approach me to have it turned into a film that can be screened at the Fantasia Film Festival—that would be awesome!
You can read my most recent weird tale, one set in the Montreal underground city, by purchasing a copy of The Stygian Zine Issue 6 (https://www.stygianmedia.ca/stygianzine). I also reviewed every story in Ann and Jeff VanderMeer’s The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories on my blog ( #WeirdFictionChallenge – Matthew Rettino ).