Highlights:
Gertrude Stein’s Oakland (Huffington Post)
In Defense of Oakland (Matt’s blog)
Android for Work Deployment Guide (Google)
Chrome Device Deployment Guide (Google)
CREATIVE and ANALYTICAL WRITING
1) Oakland Unseen, Spring 2023 issue. Edited satirical newspaper with Joe Sciarrillo and other writers, artists, and former journalists. We printed 10,000 copies of this paper, and hired actors to dress up like 1920s newsies to distribute them at events throughout the San Francisco Bay Area Jan-March 2023.
2) Burning Man: The Musical, a satirical musical comedy about the collision of techies and hippies at Burning Man. Feature film released August 27, 2021 on Amazon Prime, Broadway On Demand and Streaming Musicals. Watch the film now.
3) Children of the Night, contemporary stage play set around 9/11 in San Francisco (in development).
4) Agnus, co-writer with Ise Lyfe. Crime drama set 30 years in the future. Off-Broadway debut at Theatre Row in Manhattan, Jan-Feb 2018.
5) Burning Man Dispatch, (theatrical monologue), Times Square Playwrights, fall, 2014.
6) Oakland Unseen (satirical newspaper about Oakland, California), Fall 2013. Edited contributions by Susie Cagle, Greg F., and anonymous Oakland residents.
7) Bay Area Underground: Photos of Protests and Social Movements, 2008-2012. Co-author with Joe Sciarrillo. Thought Publishing, January 2013.
8) Oakland in Popular Memory, Thought Publishing, May 2012. Interview transcriptions by Korin McGinty, artist portraits by Laura Tomlinson, Photography by Joe Sciarrillo, and Cover by Dave Smallen.
9) My Visit to Occupy Oakland (theatrical monologue), Theater Pub, January, 2012.
10) Papers for the Suppression of Reality (Jorge Luis Borges-themed book), Thought Publishing, March 2011.
13) “39 Witnesses, the World, Stood Watch” (on the execution of Tookie Williams), in the Berkeley Daily Planet, Death Penalty Focus Newsletter Dec. 2005, Peace Power magazine, Smart Ass: UC Berkeley’s Voice of the Democratic Left, and Maganda.
14) “The Images of Harlem and the American Dream when Langston Hughes Was ‘in Vogue’ and Today,” 2006 Berkeley Undergrad Journal.
15) “Watching Beauty” (short story), Ishmael Reed’s Konch magazine, Fall 2005.
16) “I Gesticulated Sartre’s Being and Nothingness” (poem), Berkeley Poetry Review, Issue 36, 2005.
18) “The President’s War on Privacy,” Smart Ass: The Voice of Berkeley’s Democratic Left, February 2005.
19) “The US’s Role in Fighting Infectious Diseases in Third World Countries,” excerpts appear in United Nations Association-USA East Bay Chapter News, May/June 2001.
JOURNALISM and BLOG POSTS
1) Yesterday, the Oakland Coliseum was Baseball’s Last Dive Bar, Broke-Ass Stuart, June 2023
2) An Elegy to the Oakland A’s, Broke-Ass Stuart, April, 2023
3) This week in Oakland bashing, Oakland Local, December 2014
4) How to write an Oakland trend piece, Oakland Local and SF Gate, May 2014
5) Berkeley’s ‘Other Mayor,’ Berkeley volunteer redefines good Samaritanism, Berkeleyside, 2014
6) Joaquin Miller: Oakland’s first hipster?, Oaklandish blog, September 2012
7) Michael Chabon’s Real and Imagined Storefronts, Diesel Books blog, September 2012
8) Gertrude Stein’s Oakland, May 2012, Huffington Post and Google Books Blog
9) Several articles for Oakland Local on Occupy Oakland and Oakland’s art, music, and cycling culture (2011-2013)
10) Peering into Jorge Luis Borges’s Labyrinth, Google Books Blog, August 2011
11) “Building Tolerance,” (on why Boston College needs a Gay-Straight Alliance), The Heights, 2003.
12) “Poetry Slams Boston Area,” The Heights, December 26, 2002.
EDITING
1) Edited several grant applications in addition to personal statements for medical school, nursing school, law school, and prestigious scholarship applications (2009-present).
2) Collaborated with a Persian scholar on an English translation of Rumi’s Book of the Sun, 2009.
3) Collected UC Berkeley Lectures of Ricardo Lagos, President of Chile, to be published by an academic press in 2009. Lagos transcriptions by Korin McGinty.
4) Creative development & article selection, 2006 Best American Nonrequired Reading, Houghton Mifflin, Fall 2006.
5) Copy editing & fact checking many articles and interviews for 28 issues of the Believer magazine, Issues 8 – 36, McSweeney’s Publishing, 2003-2006, including serialized installments of The Polysyllabic Spree and Housekeeping vs. the Dirt, by Nick Hornby, H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life, by Michel Houellebecq, and What is the What, by Dave Eggers.
6) Creative development and submission reading, McSweeney’s Quarterly Issues 12 and 17, McSweeney’s Publishing, 2003-2006.
10) Copy editor and writer, The Daily Californian, Fall 2004 and Spring 2005.
11) Student editor, 2003 Best American Nonrequired Reading, Houghton Mifflin, Fall 2003.
TECHNICAL WRITING AT GOOGLE (Selected articles and guides)
Help center articles:
3) Google Apps Mobile Management
4) Google Apps Reseller billing transfer
5) 2-Step Verification: Sign in to mobile or desktop apps
Large documentation projects:
1) Android for Work Developer site (Published site for Google IO 2016)
2) Chrome for Business Help Center (2013 rewrite and redesign)
3) Chrome Devices for Education Technical Planning Guide (25-page PDF)
4) Google Apps Migration for Microsoft Exchange admin guide (Revised the 75-page guide)
5) Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Server admin guide (Revised the 75-page guide)
5) Google Apps Pilot Guide. (Revised the 200-page guide for the 2nd edition)
PUBLISHED INTERVIEWS
1) Meet Oakland Rapper Daveed Diggs, Star of the Broadway Smash Hit ‘Hamilton’ 7×7 Magazine, February 2016.
2) Chasing Mehserle: Oakland Playwright Holds Up Mirror to Hometown (interview with Chinaka Hodge), Oakland Local, May 2014.
3) The Rumpus Interview with Oakland Artist Ise Lyfe. TheRumpus.net, Sep. 2011.
4) The Rumpus Interview with Chinaka Hodge. TheRumpus.net, Sep. 2010.
6) Question author, collaborator, and editor for an interview with the poet Saul Williams. Berkeley Poetry Review, Spring, 2008.
For audio interviews, search “DJ Matt Werner” on iTunes. This podcast series from 2008-2009 features my radio interviews on Fresh Air: The Alternative, University of Edinburgh Student Radio.
VIDEOS and DOCUMENTARIES
1) Managing Chromebooks with the Google Admin Console, (script co-author), February 2015.
2) Google Apps Mobile Management. December, 2011.
3) “6 Questions for JC Orton,” June 2009.
“JC Orton on The School of the Americas.” “That Spark of Divinity” (forthcoming).
4) Producer and editor for promotional videos for the Global Micro-Clinic Project. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLDoZlb8LXs. (GMCP has been renamed Microclinic International)
5) General assistance, Issue 2 of Wholphin: DVD Magazine of Rare and Unseen Short Films. Published by McSweeney’s, 2006.
See http://www.youtube.com/djmattwerner and http://www.youtube.com/therealmichaelcera for more videos, music videos, movie trailers, and DJ routines I make for fun in my free time.
BOOK REVIEWS
1) Review of Off Mike: A Memoir of Talk Radio and Literary Life by Michael Krasny in the San Francisco Regional Mensa Intelligencer, June, 2008.
2) Review of The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan in the San Francisco Regional Mensa Intelligencer, May, 2008.
ARTICLES ABOUT MATT and PUBLICATIONS
1) Oakland’s Satirical News Source Back in Action (Broke-Ass Stuart, Feb 15, 2023)
2) The Inside Story on Burning Man: The Musical (Oakland Magazine, Fall, 2021)
3) Life in a Peninsula hacker house helped inspire tale of techies vs. hippies in ‘Burning Man: The Musical’ (Palo Alto Weekly, Sept 2, 2021)
4) ‘Burning Man: The Musical’ releases trailer in advance of streaming release, (SFGate, July 26, 2021)
5) Hippies and Techies Collide in New Trailer for ‘Burning Man: The Musical’ (Rolling Stone, July 26, 2021)
6) ‘Burning Man: The Musical’ is coming — here’s what you need to know; A stage reading of the new show about everyone’s fave rave is coming to SF (San Jose Mercury, Nov 9, 2019)
7) Press about Burning Man: The Musical mixtape (May 2016)
8) Press about Oakland Unseen video series (January 2016)
9) Press about Burning Man: The Musical (Fall, 2015)
10) Press about Oakland Unseen newspaper (Fall, 2013)
11) “In a Bind: Matt Werner talks about the politics of hand-binding his book,” California Magazine, Spring 2013
12) Press about Bay Area Underground (Spring and Summer, 2013)
13) Meet Matt Werner ’02, writer 2.0, Genesis Magazine, St. Ignatius College Prep, Winter 2012
14) Press about Oakland in Popular Memory (2012)
15) “Slammin’: Poems by the People, for the People,” by Camille Dodero, Boston College Magazine, Winter 2003
WRITING PRIZE COMMITTEES
1) Berkeley Prize Essay Competition committee member (2008 – present)
WRITING EXPERIENCE
Prior to working at Google, Matt did freelance editing and writing for nonprofit organizations like Microclinic International, Sparkseed, and UC Berkeley’s Center for Latin American Studies; for tech companies like BlueLithium (purchased by Yahoo!); and also for individuals who have successfully applied for prestigious scholarships, grants, and fellowships.
As a freelancer, Matt performed professionally for assignments ranging from translating poetry, editing short stories, transcribing and fact-checking the speeches of a former Latin American head of state, developing a UC Berkeley course syllabus, editing peer-reviewed psychological journal articles, PhD dissertations, and editing media for college-level physics, astronomy, biology, and anatomy and physiology textbooks. Matt has experience editing in AP, Chicago, MLA, and APA styles.