Hi. I’m Matt.
You’re reading this because you’re curious. That’s good. I’m curious too. I’m curious about your story. Your questions. The ones you might only ask a stranger. And I’m also curious about beauty and eloquence and its place in a troubled time
Stillman Says is a place where I share my curiosities - for life, for culture, for making meaning as we move through this upside down world.
I share stories of creative approaches.
And of ancestral culture and beauty making and maintenance.
And I often offer courses in poetry memorization and recitation called “Committed To Heart, Committed To Memory”
“Matthew Stillman is a deep listener, a skilled practitioner of a myriad of disciplines, and true gem of an individual. Working with him is always a wonderful and insightful experience and anyone who crosses paths with him can count themselves very fortunate indeed!”
- Matthew Levinson
Matt Stillman’s Bio
Matt Stillman has made a long career out of using his inherently inquisitive and exploratory nature to find creative, sustainable approaches to complex problems. He has worked for years in diverse arenas to create and discover deeper connections with both the people he interacts with and the community in which he resides.
As a former Food Network executive, Matt brought such groundbreaking shows as Iron Chef and Good Eats (and many others) to American audiences.
He studied and performed longform improvisational comedy, primarily with the Upright Citizens Brigade, for more than 25 years and has been deeply shaped by that influence and practice and wrote a book “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way To Mount Sinai: The Ten Commandments as a Guide to LongForm Improvisation” inspired by his on stage experience.
In 2006 Matt conceived of and wrote a treatment for “The End of Poverty?” – a feature length film about the origins of poverty and why it persists in a world with so much wealth. The film premiered at Cannes in 2008 and was selected as a Critics Choice of the Festival. Matt was honored to speak at the UN four times about the film and tour widely speaking about the film. His experience making the film crystallized his understanding of global issues, commerce, waste, sustainability.
After a lifelong study and practice with aspects of the Eastern and Western spiritual practice and discipline and many years of deep engagement with long form improvisational comedy, he started his creative approaches service and consultancy on the streets of New York offering strangers 'creative approaches' to what they had been struggling with - big or small, personal or professional, mundane or profoundly esoteric. Matthew helps people look at whatever is burdening them in new ways. Not to solve the problems but to court new relationships with them.
An author of the book "Genesis Deflowered", a book of biblical erotica written in Elizabethan English looking how we might heal the fracture between sex and spirit in our culture.
He started a skin care company, Primal Derma, where he attempts to reclaim some older forgotten trails of how people made a deep connection between health of place, animals and humans to making a spot in the world that you belong to a bit more deeply. He teaches online courses regularly on the skill of poetry memorization and recitation called "Committed To Heart, Committed to Memory."
Matthew is a life-long New Yorker, a lover of language, culture, and is a practitioner of bigger questions and wondering aloud and sitting in mystery.
You can reach him at m@stillmansays.com
