​Matthew Modica was born and raised in northern Illinois near the Wisconsin border. After completing a BA in history at the University of Illinois and an MFA in creative writing at Emerson College, he served as the 2013-2014 Carl Djerassi Fiction Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. His fiction has received support from the MacDowell Colony and the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation and has appeared in journals such as The Antioch Review, Witness, Mississippi Review Online, Fourteen Hills, and others. 

He is currently working on a novel about a small Midwestern town trying to recapture its heyday as a turn-of-the-century resort. He lives with the writer Asako Serizawa.