
Poet. Pirate. It's all the same really. They both pillage, plunder, drink rum, look for treasure, and sometimes, after too many drinks, they're known to throw a right hook or two. But that's the beauty of poetry and piracy-it's unhinged, a stream of emotions that make you laugh, cry, bleed, bruise, and eat oranges to prevent scurvy. It's an adventure. It's feeling the wind on your face from the sea or the page. It's tasting the salt in the ocean or in your tears. But most importantly, it's the experience of getting from one port to another, one page to the next, killing one more siren and murdering just one more darling. You see, piracy is about rules, and the number one rule is that there are no rules. Pirate-poets live for the journey, they do what has to be done to survive, and hope that karma, or a Kraken, doesn't come around and bite them in the arse. Poetry is like that, too. It's a fleeting moment, an image, that the writer is hoping will leave you breathless, bruised, and stranded on an island. Underwater Fistfight does just that, because Matt Betts is a pirate-poet who takes science fiction and throws it in the brig with horror while he sits outside the cell, laughing as they duke it out. He's a regular Davy Jones, a sailor's devil, claiming the lives of these poems and dragging them down to the locker to dissect, inspect, and sift through their stories and characters like plunder.
Author

I've been writing for a number of years and had some good fortune in getting my work in print and online venues. I've also contributed as a staff member to a few magazines. I'm a big fan of pop culture. I love old movies; good ones, bad ones, doesn't matter. Actually, I sometimes prefer the bad ones. My first book, Odd Men Out, was launched in the summer of 2013 from Dog Star Books. It has some steampunk, some alternate history, some horror and a giant lizard. That's plenty for the first book, right? My second book, Indelible Ink, is an urban fantasy crime story that's sort of my homage to the late Elmore Leonard by way of the Dresden Files. I had so much fun writing this and I think it shows in the book. Two of my novels were released in 2018: The adventure/kaiju/scifi book The Shadow Beneath the Waves, and the dark fantasy/comedy Indelible Ink. I've also written two books of speculative poetry - See No Evil, Say No Evil and Underwater Fistfight. I'm working on a sequel to Odd Men Out and a stand-alone monster book. I love attending cons - I've been a panelist, moderator, invited guest, and presenter. It's always a joy to interact with readers, other writers, and creators.