About

Matt Bell is the author of a forthcoming fiction collection, How They Were Found (Keyhole, Fall 2010), as well as a novella, The Collectors, and a chapbook, How the Broken Lead the Blind. His fiction has appeared or is upcoming in magazines such as Conjunctions, Willow Springs, Unsaid, American Short Fiction, Redivider, Gulf Coast, Caketrain, Hayden's Ferry Review, Hobart, Barrelhouse, Monkeybicycle, and Gargoyle.

He is also the editor of The Collagist and the series editor of Dzanc's Best of the Web anthology series.

He lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and can be reached via e-mail at mdbell79@gmail.com.

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The Collectors

How the Broken Lead the Blind

How They Were Found
The Collagist

A new literary magazine published by Dzanc Books, edited by Matt Bell with Poetry Editor Matthew Olzmann. Now available at www.thecollagist.com.

Published Fiction
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  • Vanishing Point: Not a Memoir
    Vanishing Point: Not a Memoir
    by Ander Monson
Anthologies
Awards and Recognitions
  • 2009 Wigleaf Top 50 Very Short Fictions Selection, for "This Showroom Filled With Fabulous Prizes"
  • 2009 Dzanc Best of the Web Notable Story, for "The Folk Singer Dreams of Time Machines"
  • 2008 Caketrain Fiction Chapbook Contest Runner-Up, for The Collectors
  • 2008 Keyhole Fiction Chapbook Contest Finalist, for The Collectors
  • 2008 Million Writers Award Winner, for "Alex Trebek Never Eats Fried Chicken"
  • 2008 Dzanc Best of the Web Notable Story, 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"
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Tuesday
09Sep2008

Stanley Crawford Interviewed at Bookslut

I just finished reading Stanley Crawford's Log of the S.S. the Mrs Unguentine yesterday, the same day Bookslut posted their interview with him.  I thought Log was great-- I love books where characters must create their own worlds to live in because the one they've been given is insufficient, and that's exactly what happens aboard the barge where the novel is set.  Here's an early section of the book that I think represents the writing style well:

Forty years ago I first linked up Unguentine and we made love on twin-hulled catamarans, sails a-billow, bless the seas, but Unguentine--now dead after a bloody eventless life--turned out to be a ferocious bastard who beat me within an inch of my life everywhere we sighted land, not because of me, not for land, but for drink, he with his bent for alcohol up to the very last moment when his grey lips touched the blue sea for the final time, moment of his death.  Suicide.  So I sailed that ship, I sailed it every nautical inch of our marriage.

Check out the interview at Bookslut, and then pick up a copy of the novel.  It's just been reprinted by Dalkey Archives with an interesting afterword by Ben Marcus.  Also, this is the second book I've read in a row that I originally heard about from Blake Butler's blog, so be sure to stop over there and keep tabs on what he's reading next.

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