KALLE OSKARI MATTILA

Hi, I'm Kalle, a writer from Finland living in the States. I am the founder of the content marketing agency PYRY.

My first article was published in Finland's largest newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, when I was 13 years old. A decade and some years later, I now hold a Master of Fine Arts in nonfiction writing from Columbia University and have published my journalism and essays in The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Vogue, The Atlantic, Bloomberg Businessweek, The Paris Review, Business Insider, and Monocle, among others.

I also teach creative writing, and have taught creative nonfiction workshops in the undergraduate creative writing program at Columbia University and online at Writing Pad.

My writing has been translated to Greek, Portuguese, Italian, Vietnamese, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, and Thai. One of my investigative pieces for The Atlantic was anthologized – alongside work by writers like Malcolm Gladwell and Jenna Wortham – in Signs of Life in the USA: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers, published by Bedford/St. Martin’s. That essay, among others, is now taught at universities across America.

I am currently at work on a memoir – a chapter of which appeared in The New York Times' Modern Love column. Actor Cory Michael Smith performed my essay at the Modern Love Live event in 2018 at Provincetown Film Festival and The Boston Globe called it a “crowd favorite.” That reading was later aired as a Modern Love Podcast episode on NPR and is now available to stream on Spotify and iHeart Radio, among other platforms.

You can read interviews of me in Finnish media at Ilta-Sanomat, Finland’s most popular news source, MTV, Finland’s biggest commercial news network, and Helsingin Sanomat, Finland’s largest daily newspaper. Ylioppilaslehti recently published an extensive, 10-page profile detailing my writing life.

Before moving to New York, I worked in managerial positions at Penguin Press in London – one of the most prestigious nonfiction imprints in publishing – and at Demos Helsinki, Finland’s leading nonpartisan think tank.

As a marketer, publicist, and copywriter, I continue to create content and PR for major companies and nonprofit organizations. I also consult several organizations on digital marketing and have advised governmental bodies like the Finnish government’s steering committee for climate communications. My client list includes the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra and Wärtsilä, a global leader in the marine and energy markets.

I live and work in the United States on an EB-1 extraordinary ability green card.

For assignments and anything else, feel free to get in touch at kalle.mattila[at]columbia.edu