Matthew Shaer is a writer for the New York Times Magazine, an Emerson Fellow at New America, and a co-founder of the podcast studio Campside, which specializes in episodic nonfiction. His long-form reporting appears regularly in publications like The Atlantic, New York, Harper’s, and Wired.

In 2021, Shaer hosted and co-created an audio documentary called Suspect, which was named one of the best podcasts of the year by The New Yorker, New York, and The Boston Globe, among other publications. Writing in The New Yorker, staff critic Sarah Larson called the show “a gripping, character-driven story that always foregrounds the humanity of its subjects, most of whom we empathize with and respect. It’s also a master class in tone, focussing on justice forthrightly without patting itself on the back.”

Suspect went on to win a Signal Award for Best Writing, an Ambie Award for Best True Crime Show of 2021, and an American Journalism Award from NYU. “This podcast is as much a triumph of reporting as it is of writing or production,” the NYU judges wrote in their citation. “There is a restraint, purposefulness, and basic humanity to this podcast worthy of celebration.”

Suspect was one of the top ten most popular shows to debut on Apple Podcasts in 2021; it was also featured on Spotify’s “Best of the Year” collection. It has since appeared on numerous “best of” lists, including The Week magazine’s list of the top true crime audio documentaries of all time.

As a magazine writer, Shaer has covered stories in Egypt, Cambodia, Kyrgyzstan, Serbia, Brazil, Thailand, Vietnam, Turkey, Mexico, Myanmar, Lithuania, Greece, Eastern Russia, Western Africa, and the Syrian borderlands. His 2014 dispatch from the Seychelles was part of a Polk Award-winning project on offshore corruption. And in 2015, his Atavist Magazine story The Sinking of the Bounty was a finalist for a National Magazine Award in Reporting. The article is anthologized in Best American Magazine Writing 2014.

Shaer is a graduate of New York University’s MFA program in creative writing, and has taught at The New School, Drew University, and NYU. In past lives, he was a fry cook, a bike messenger, and a staff writer for Cash Cab. A native of Massachusetts, he lives in Atlanta. 

Represented by Edward Orloff at McCormick Literary and Michelle Kroes at Creative Artists Agency.