Matt Bell (author)
{{short description|American writer}}
{{BLP primary sources|date=March 2022}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=September 2019}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Matt Bell
| image = Matt Bell 2015.jpg
| imagesize =
| caption = Bell at the 2015 Texas Book Festival.
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1980|08|23}}
| birth_place = Saginaw, MI
| death_date =
| death_place =
| occupation = Writer
| genre = Literary fiction, dark fantasy, horror, experimental fiction
| movement =
| nationality = American
| influences =
| influenced =
| website = {{URL|http://mdbell.com}}
}}
Matt Bell (born August 23, 1980){{Cite news |title=Matt Bell (@mdbell79) on X |url=https://www.twitter.com/mdbell79/status/1696575405405425777?s=46 |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20240608012516/https://twitter.com/mdbell79/status/1696575405405425777?s=46 |archive-date=2024-06-08 |access-date=2024-12-20 |work=X (formerly Twitter) |language=en}} is an American writer. He is the author of Appleseed (2021), How They Were Found (2010){{Cite web |url=https://www.mattbell.com/#/how-they-were-found/ |title=How They Were Found |publisher=Matt Bell |access-date=September 6, 2019}} and Cataclysm Baby (2012).{{Cite web |url=http://www.mdbell.com/cataclysm-baby/ |title=Cataclysm Baby |publisher=Matt Bell |access-date=September 6, 2019}} 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,[http://www.nmu.edu/bulletin1213/node/58 Northern Michigan Faculty] and currently teaches in the English department at Arizona State University.[https://isearch.asu.edu/profile/2466695 Arizona State Faculty]
Bell is the senior editor at Dzanc Books,[http://www.dzancbooks.org Dzanc Books] as well as the founding editor of The Collagist,[http://www.dzancbooks.org/thecollagist The Collagist] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110710000714/http://www.dzancbooks.org/thecollagist/ |date=July 10, 2011 }} 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
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."[http://htmlgiant.com/author-news/matt-bells-full-length-debuts-today/ HTMLGiant] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110728034757/http://htmlgiant.com/author-news/matt-bells-full-length-debuts-today/|date=July 28, 2011}}
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."{{Cite web|title=Torn Between Three Worlds: On Matt Bell's "Appleseed"|url=https://www.clereviewofbooks.com/home/matt-bell-appleseed-review|access-date=2021-11-15|website=Cleveland Review of Books|language=en-US}}
Bibliography
- 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){{Cite web |url=https://sohopress.com/books/in-the-house-upon-the-dirt-between-the-lake-and-the-woods/ |title=Publisher's Book Page |date=June 2013 |publisher=Soho Press |access-date=September 6, 2019}}
- Baldur's Gate II (Boss Fight Books, 2015){{Cite web |url=http://bossfightbooks.com/blogs/news/15832200-baldurs-gate-ii-dungeons-dragons-and-character-creation-6-questions-for-matt-bell |title=Baldur's Gate II, Dungeons & Dragons, and Character Creation: 6 Questions for Matt Bell |first=Michael P. |last=Williams |date=November 11, 2014 |publisher=Boss Fight Books |access-date=September 6, 2019}}
- Scrapper (Soho Press, 2015)
- A Tree or a Person or a Wall (Soho Press, 2016)
- Appleseed: A Novel (Custom House, 2021){{Cite web|title=Appleseed|url=https://www.mattbell.com/appleseed|access-date=2021-11-15|website=Matt Bell|language=en-US}}
- Refuse to Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts (Soho Press, 2022)
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [http://www.mdbell.com/ Official Website]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20100601213230/http://www.asu.edu/piper/publications/haydensferryreview/issue45/fiction/fiction_bell.html "Dredge," a short story published in Hayden's Ferry Review]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20110704053312/http://www.conjunctions.com/archives/c53-mb.htm "His Last Great Gift," a short story published in Conjunctions]
- [http://www.tinhouse.com/blog/24399/even-our-bones-had-memories.html Interview with author at Tin House]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bell, Matt}}
Category:21st-century American male writers
Category:American fiction writers