Matt Ortile

Matt Ortile is the author of the essay collection The Groom Will Keep His Name. He is also the executive editor of Catapult magazine, and writes regularly for Condé Nast Traveler. Previously, he was the founding editor of BuzzFeed Philippines. He is a MacDowell Fellow and has written for Vogue, Self, Out, Into, and BuzzFeed News, among others. He is a graduate of Vassar College, which means he now lives in Brooklyn. You can find more of his work on mattortile.com and on Twitter @ortile.

Stories

Cover Photo: A black and white portrait photograph of Princess Diana. She is staring at the camera and smiling very slightly.

My Mom, Princess Diana, and Me

At what point does someone we’ve lost become only a story we tell, more myth than memory?

Nov 08, 2021

Columns | Grief At A Distance

Cover Photo: A dining table on which sit a laptop, a notebook, magazines (Condé Nast Traveler and The New Yorker), a book (The Best American Travel Writing 2021), and a glass of wine (grüner veltliner)

Where Matt Ortile Writes

I try to be agnostic about where I write; I never have an excuse to not.

Oct 18, 2021

Don’t Write Alone | Where We Write

Cover Photo: collage consisting of several photos of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and the author baking them

Baking My Mother’s Recipes Keeps Her Near

Baking was solely Mom’s domain, I believed, and cooking for her was mine.

Aug 04, 2021

Columns | Grief At A Distance

Cover Photo: Screenshot via Nintendo

I Can’t Defeat My Grief, But I’m Learning to Carry It

In video games, dead parent storylines give a character depth. Their grief becomes a plot point, something to overcome.

Feb 22, 2021

Columns | Grief At A Distance

Cover Photo: photograph of a gold-framed photograph of the author as a child, with his mother, on a shelf also containing a clock and a wooden jewelry box with a vase and framed art behind

My Mother Lives Here Because I Live Here

It was the middle of a pandemic. Mom had just died of cancer. Why leave my home of four and a half years?

Jan 20, 2021

Columns | Grief At A Distance