About

Matt Bell is the author of How They Were Found, forthcoming from Keyhole Press in October 2010, as well as three chapbooks, Wolf Parts (Keyhole Press), The Collectors (Caketrain Press), and How the Broken Lead the Blind (Willows Wept Press). His fiction has appeared in Conjunctions, Hayden's Ferry Review, Willow Springs, Unsaid, and American Short Fiction, and has been selected for inclusion in anthologies such as Best American Mystery Stories 2010 and Best American Fantasy 2. His book reviews and critical essays have appeared in The Los Angeles Times, American Book Review, and The Quarterly Conversation.

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

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

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« "His Last Great Gift" in CONJUNCTIONS 53 | Main | ADAM ROBISON AND OTHER POEMS by Adam Robinson »
Thursday
Oct292009

As a little girl Madeline took ballet lessons twice a week

There's a mirror on the back of her bedroom door. That night, as she considered her options, she stood in front of the mirror sucking her stomach in, tracing her rib cage with her fingers. "I am a fine piece of ass," she whispered. She looked at her long black hair, bone straight, cascading down her back, her strong chin always jutting forward, the dimple in her left cheek, the slender length of her neck. Madeline slid her hands over her breasts, slightly swollen with milk, then down the flat of her stomach. "I am a fine piece of ass," she repeated. She pressed the palm of her hand against the wall and hummed an étude and practiced the barrre routine from her childhood—demi-plié, elevé, tendu, rond de jambe.

--"We Do Not Speak of Graceful Things" by Roxane Gay

Storyglossia's "Music+Obsession" issue has just gone live, with work by Anne Valente, Tim Jones-Yelvington, Roxane Gay, and many others, including Y.G. Yen, whose "The Player" is his first published story, something I'm always happy to see. I've read three of the stories in the issue already tonight, and suggest you get reading yourself. As always, there's some great fiction to be read here.

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