About the founder:
In Pursuit of the Trivial is the op-ed Web site of Nathan Mattise, a 24-year-old journalism graduate of Syracuse University. Mattise has written professionally for The Pocono Record, The Albuquerque Tribune and The Syracuse Post-Standard. He’s also published a short story on Esquire.com and was a music DJ at 89.1 fm in Syracuse. He’s been rejected by several more professional organizations including The Scranton Times, The Orlando Sentinel, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Newsday and The St. Petersburg Times. He’s also interviewed with BusinessWeek, SI.com, CondeNast, Highlights For Children, The Poynter Institute and the NCAA but was unable to earn or accept positions. Such is the life of a young wanna-be writer you know?
Mattise enjoys many things, but at the top of the list is pop-culture. He’s an avid reader of many blogs, listener of various podcasts and watcher of even the most absurd television for this reason. Can any of this ever help him achieve something in the professional realm? Probably not. But it did lead to the creation of In Pursuit of the Trivial in July 2007.
Some day Mattise hopes to be paid for his writing (be it in a newspaper, a novel, on radio, online, on television, etc.). Currently he’s trying to do something productive with his life following the end of his undergraduate days. He’s approaching this situation by working for a university, pursuing graduate studies on the side and taking any freelancing opportunities that come his way. He’s still not sure what path in life is really for him, but then again, who really does know what life has in store?
To find out more about the author, you can look him up on most social networking sites or contact him through e-mail.
About the site:
In Pursuit of the Trivial is inspired by a premise from Bertolt Brecht that good art (and therefore good writing) provokes questions and self-reflection rather than providing answers. This site sets out to analyze life and start conversations through essays or articles mostly on pop culture and personal experiences. Obviously the site’s title is a pun from the former category; our founder fancies himself a boardgame enthusiast.
At its core, the site is a collection of random essays and columns written by random college students. It ambitiously promises to update at least three times a week. All of the random pieces, reoccurring columns, interesting links will be neatly categorized into the traditional six: History. Geography. Science and Nature. Sports and Leisure. Entertainment. Arts and Literature.
The site is currently just for leisure, but who knows. If it ever gains enough exposure or traffic, people can gladly use it to advertise or can compile articles together for a collection – whatever it is that professional Web sites do for income. A collection of essays on trivial topics written by young people would make a great magazine, right? I’d read that 
Until then, it’s the hope of everyone involved that you enjoy reading the stuff as much as we enjoy creating it. 
