Matt Bell

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Matt Bell is the author of the forthcoming chapbook How the Broken Lead the Blind, and has published fiction in magazines such as Caketrain, Barrelhouse, Monkeybicycle, Juked, Keyhole, and McSweeney's Internet Tendency. His stories will be anthologized in Best American Fantasy 2008 and Online Writing: The Best of the First Ten Years. His story "Alex Trebek Never Eats Fried Chicken" was a finalist for the 2007 Storyglossia Fiction Prize and the winner of the 2008 Million Writers Award.

He is also a member of the Hobart web editing team and of the Dzanc Writer in Residence Program for the 2008-2009 school year.

He lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he is working on his first novel, and can be reached via e-mail at mdbell79@gmail.com.

How the Broken Lead the Blind

A collection of ten short stories, some of which previously appeared in journals such as Storyglossia, No Colony, Juked, SmokeLong Quarterly, Night Train, elimae, and McSweeney's Internet Tendency
Forthcoming from Willows Wept Press (January 2009)
Limited run of 100 copies
Illustrations and cover art by Christy Call

Anthologies

Mario's Three Lives (upcoming in Best American Fantasy 2008)
The Plastic Surgeon's Wife (upcoming in Online Writing: The Best of the First Ten Years, 2009)
Custard's Last Stand (published in Dogzplot Flash Fiction Anthology, 2008)

Upcoming Stories

BeautyForever™ (upcoming in Barrelhouse #7, 2009)
The Girls of Channel 2112 (upcoming in Monkeybicycle #6, 2009)
The Leftover (upcoming in Meridian #22, 2009)
Hold On To Your Vacuum (upcoming in Keyhole #6, 2009)

Published Stories

The Sweet Stuff (published in Keyhole #5, 2008)
This Showroom Filled With Fabulous Prizes (published in Night Train, 2008)
How They Were Found and Who They Were That Found Them (published in Wigleaf, 2008)
Her Ennead (published in Storyglossia, 2008)
The Founder of this Town (published in Twelve Stories, 2008)
Non-Medical Descriptions of an Object Floating in Glass (published in Lamination Colony, 2008)
Ken Sent Me: Lost in the Land of the Lounge Lizards (published in Hobart #9, 2008)
Ten Scenes From a Movie Called Mercy (published in No Colony 001, 2008)
Creating a Radio (published in elimae, 2008)
The Folk Singer Dreams of Time Machines (published in Smokelong Quarterly #21, 2008)
Like a Giant Beacon (published in Juked, 2008)
Stealing Susan (published in Bruiser Review, 2008, and in Oleander Review, 2008)
Custard's Last Stand (published in Dogzplot Flash Fiction, 2008)
Alex Trebek Never Eats Fried Chicken (published in Storyglossia 23, 2007)
A Certain Number of Bedrooms, a Certain Number of Baths (published in Caketrain 04, 2007)
Mario's Three Lives (published in Bound Off, 2006, and in Barrelhouse #4, 2007)
Anything (published in Greatest Uncommon Denominator, 2007)
Player Piano (published in Juked, 2006)
Excerpt From Volume H-Hn: Hair Boxes (published in McSweeney's Internet Tendency, 2006)
The Present (published online in juked, 2006, then reprinted in juked print #4)
The Diner (published in The Quiet Feather, 2006)
The Raincheck (published in Storyglossia #15, 2006)
An End to Efficient Vehicles (published in Rumble, 2006)
CHAINSAW (n.) (published in elimae, 2006)
The Plastic Surgeon's Wife (published in Thieves Jargon, 2006)
Instructions For My Twenty-Third Year (published in Edifice Wrecked, 2006)
How the Broken Lead the Blind Until They Both Become Something Else Entirely (published in Smokelong Quarterly #13, 2006)
White Lines and Headlights (published in Barrelhouse #2, 2006)
Rest Stop (published in Hobart #5, 2005)
Twenty Fingers (published in FRiGG, 2005)
Ground Rules (published in FRiGG, 2005)
Five Pop Quizzes (published in FRiGG, 2005)
Separate Checks (published in Me Three, 2005)
How to Befriend a Chimera (published in The Beat, 2005)
Joseph's Dilemma (published in Monkeybicycle, 2005)
The Birthday Gift (published in The Detroiter, 2005)
Fireworks (published in Cellar Door, 2004)
Respect (published in Metal Scratches, 2004)
Something Less Than Beautiful (published in The Driftwood Review, 2004)
El Camino Education (published in The Drexel Online Journal, 2004)
91.67:8.33 (published in Thieves Jargon, 2004)

Awards and Nominations

2008 Keyhole Fiction Chapbook Contest Finalist, for The Collectors
2008 Million Writers Award Winner, for "Alex Trebek Never Eats Fried Chicken"
2008 Pushcart Prize Nomination for "The Folk Singer Dreams of Time Machines"
2008 Pushcart Prize Nomination for "Ken Sent Me: Lost in the Land of the Lounge Lizards"
2007 Storyglossia Fiction Prize Finalist, for "Alex Trebek Never Eats Fried Chicken"
2007 Pushcart Prize Nomination for "A Certain Number of Bedrooms, a Certain Number of Baths"
2006 Pushcart Prize Nomination for "The Present"
2006 Pushcart Prize Nomination for "White Lines and Headlights"
2006 Pushcart Prize Nomination for "Rosemary Blooming"

Thursday

20Jul

Hobart #6: "Pregnant" by Catherine Zeidler

Thursday, July 20, 2006 at 02:17AM

The nameless protagonists of Catherine Zeidler's "Pregnant" meet beneath a burned out streetlight on the Brooklyn Bridge, an ominous beginning to a relationship that's eventually characterized by drunken delusions and hallucinatory co-dependence. Zeidler's language is full of strong imagery that evokes a nervous paranoia in the reader, her sentences building dread a word at a time, full of misunderstanding and hurt. The narrator describes her lover as he "laughs like a ship burning" and how during sex he "huddles his head between my legs and kisses me as if I could kiss back down there," making him more beautiful even as he becomes more and more brutally loving. Her life is quickly consumed by this man she's brought home, both figuratively and literally, as their sex leads to almost animalistic violence:

He has bitten my fingers down so much that they are all blood and holes. He has peeled my nails mostly off with his teeth. I can't touch anything without it digging into raw flesh. When they grow back they will be rough and strained and then I don't know who I'll be.

Eventually, the man becomes convinced he's pregnant, feeding the baby in his belly the narrator's hair and skin, trading her life for his imagined baby's. As his foraging for fetal nourishment ravages her body, the narrator swings further into his power, leading finally to a powerful ending that both confirms and denies the worst of what's come before. "Pregnant" is, without question, a severely bleak story, but it's also a beautiful one. Whatever the quality of the love between the characters, there's no doubt in my mind that it is in fact love, something the narrator celebrates even as it threatens to destroy her.

"Pregnant" is Catherine Zeidler's first published story, and it's easily one of the strongest short stories I've read lately. I'll be looking forward to reading more of her work in the future

Read Catherine Zeidler's "Pregnant" in Hobart #6.

Bonus materials at the Hobart Website: "Sketches"

Matt Bell |

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