Matt Bell (born August 23, 1980)[1] is an American writer. He is the author of Appleseed (2021), How They Were Found (2010)[2] and Cataclysm Baby (2012).[3] He received his BA from Oakland University and his MFA from Bowling Green State University. In 2012, he took a position as an assistant professor in the English department at Northern Michigan University,[4] and currently teaches in the English department at Arizona State University.[5]

Matt Bell
Bell at the 2015 Texas Book Festival.
Bell at the 2015 Texas Book Festival.
Born (1980-08-23) August 23, 1980 (age 44)
Saginaw, MI
OccupationWriter
NationalityAmerican
GenreLiterary fiction, dark fantasy, horror, experimental fiction
Website
mdbell.com

Bell is the senior editor at Dzanc Books,[6] as well as the founding editor of The Collagist,[7] a monthly online literary magazine. His short fiction has also appeared in numerous literary magazines, including Conjunctions, Hayden's Ferry Review, Gulf Coast, Guernica, Willow Springs, Unsaid, and American Short Fiction. His stories have been anthologized in The Best American Mystery Stories, Best American Fantasy, and 30 Under 30: an Anthology of Innovative Fiction by Younger Writers.

Reception

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How They Were Found was reviewed favorably in The Believer, American Book Review, and The Rumpus. At HTMLGiant, Kyle Minor wrote that "Matt Bell has built a national reputation on his own terms, completely outside the support system of New York publishing, on the strength of his stories and novellas, which are wholly original and singularly his own. He is that rare sort of writer whose work the reader would recognize even if were published anonymously. It is formally daring, high-stakes, languaged-up stuff, and (lucky us!), the best of it has finally been collected at book length."[8]

Cleveland Review of Books reviewed Appleseed: A Novel, calling Bell's prose "visceral and sensuous" as it explored humanity's "narrow, immediate, and self-serving worldview."[9]

Bibliography

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  • How They Were Found (short fiction) (Keyhole Press, 2010)
  • Cataclysm Baby (Mud Luscious Press, 2012)
  • In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods (Soho Press, 2013)[10]
  • Baldur's Gate II (Boss Fight Books, 2015)[11]
  • Scrapper (Soho Press, 2015)
  • A Tree or a Person or a Wall (Soho Press, 2016)
  • Appleseed: A Novel (Custom House, 2021)[12]
  • Refuse to Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts (Soho Press, 2022)

References

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  1. ^ https://www.twitter.com/mdbell79/status/1696575405405425777?s=46 [bare URL]
  2. ^ "How They Were Found". Matt Bell. Retrieved September 6, 2019.
  3. ^ "Cataclysm Baby". Matt Bell. Retrieved September 6, 2019.
  4. ^ Northern Michigan Faculty
  5. ^ Arizona State Faculty
  6. ^ Dzanc Books
  7. ^ The Collagist Archived July 10, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
  8. ^ HTMLGiant Archived July 28, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
  9. ^ "Torn Between Three Worlds: On Matt Bell's "Appleseed"". Cleveland Review of Books. Retrieved November 15, 2021.
  10. ^ "Publisher's Book Page". Soho Press. June 2013. Retrieved September 6, 2019.
  11. ^ Williams, Michael P. (November 11, 2014). "Baldur's Gate II, Dungeons & Dragons, and Character Creation: 6 Questions for Matt Bell". Boss Fight Books. Retrieved September 6, 2019.
  12. ^ "Appleseed". Matt Bell. Retrieved November 15, 2021.
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