My story "Cain, Caleb, Cameron" is now live at Wigleaf, sharing the title page with such fine writers as Elizabeth Ellen, Angi Becker Stevens, Paula Ray, Jason Lee Norman, Thomas Kearnes, Greggory Moore, William Reese Hamilton, C. Robert Miller, Nicolle Elizabeth, Kirsty Logan, Amelia Gray, Robert Swartwood, Craig Snyder, Jimmy Chen, Roxane Gay, Andrew Borgstrom, Corey Mesler, Catherine Zickgraf, Ben Loory, and Lauren Becker.

"Cain, Caleb, Cameron" is a very short piece--less than 200 words--but here's the first paragraph as a teaser:

The doctors promised twins but delivered only one baby from my wife's pummeled womb, her troubled cavity. First there was the push, push, then the blood, then my mistake-toothed firstborn howling in the nurse's arms: chubby, too chubby, too covered in mother's gore.

This short is from a novella I'm currently revising. It's made of up of twenty-six sections, ranging from this one, the shortest, to others that are a little over a thousand words. Others are forthcoming in Unsaid, Sleepingfish, Gargoyle, ml press chapbooks, Triplequick Fiction, and Wrong Tree Review.

The only other section already published, "Domina, Doreen, Dorma," appeared at Everyday Genius this summer. Yesterday, Mel Bosworth posted a reading of the opening of that story as part of his YouTube series, Mel Bosworth Reads Things. Check it out:

Be sure to visit the rest of Mel's intriguing channel to hear him read snippets of work by Ethel Rohan, Eric Beeny, Ben Tanzer, David Erlewine, Jason Jordan, and several others.

Today's thanks go out to Scott Garson for publishing me again at Wigleaf, and to Mel Bosworth for his kind inclusion of my work in his video series. Thank you both!

Update on Monday, November 2, 2009 at 09:35AM by Matt Bell

Hobie Anthony kindly blogged about "Cain, Caleb, Cameron," saying:

I'm usually livid when I see stuff like this published. Why? Because I find it to be a hollow device where the writer can distance himself from everything and just tell us a story. Like when someone tells you all about a movie. They're not involved in the movie at all, but they're telling you anyway.

Often, these narrators are just telling a story - you know, not showing...

Bell's narrator is such a wordsmith that he does show me the story. It's brought to life, and it's creepy as hell.

Thanks, Hobie! I appreciate you getting over your initial reservations about the story, and also your taking the time to analyze what your resistance to the story was as well as how it was overcome. It was interesting for me to see that process written out.