Matt Bell
@mdbell79.bsky.social
Writer, teacher. Out now: APPLESEED, a novel (2021, @marinerbooks). REFUSE TO BE DONE, a guide to novel revision (2022, @soho_press). He/him.
Pinned
Matt Bell
@mdbell79.bsky.social
· Sep 8
I just found out that REFUSE TO BE DONE is going into its 8th printing! I've heard so many stories from writers whose projects have been helped along by this little yellow book over the past three years. Nothing makes me happier!
It's been a beautiful couple of days for running up in Flagstaff, despite lingering wildfire smoke from nearby prescribed burns.
November 15, 2025 at 4:54 PM
It's been a beautiful couple of days for running up in Flagstaff, despite lingering wildfire smoke from nearby prescribed burns.
"The book was a challenge, a secondhand paperback crammed with huge and violent emotions in small crowded type on waterlogged pages..." —Don DeLillo, Zero K
November 14, 2025 at 6:34 PM
"The book was a challenge, a secondhand paperback crammed with huge and violent emotions in small crowded type on waterlogged pages..." —Don DeLillo, Zero K
"In effing the ineffable, language fails, has to fail, should fail, and should go on failing, loquaciously failing. Failure is the aim, an apparently aimless aim, which shoots at a target it cannot see, cannot know, and cannot even conceive." —Simon Critchley, Mysticism
November 14, 2025 at 4:12 PM
"In effing the ineffable, language fails, has to fail, should fail, and should go on failing, loquaciously failing. Failure is the aim, an apparently aimless aim, which shoots at a target it cannot see, cannot know, and cannot even conceive." —Simon Critchley, Mysticism
Reposted by Matt Bell
(Non)Fiction Friday: "I tried listening to whale songs and podcasts filled with monotone, meandering stories that would put anyone (except me) to sleep."
From ASU English professor @sarahviren.bsky.social's essay about a soothing British radio show @nytimes.com: ow.ly/IQhJ50XptaW #ASUHumanities
From ASU English professor @sarahviren.bsky.social's essay about a soothing British radio show @nytimes.com: ow.ly/IQhJ50XptaW #ASUHumanities
November 14, 2025 at 3:53 PM
(Non)Fiction Friday: "I tried listening to whale songs and podcasts filled with monotone, meandering stories that would put anyone (except me) to sleep."
From ASU English professor @sarahviren.bsky.social's essay about a soothing British radio show @nytimes.com: ow.ly/IQhJ50XptaW #ASUHumanities
From ASU English professor @sarahviren.bsky.social's essay about a soothing British radio show @nytimes.com: ow.ly/IQhJ50XptaW #ASUHumanities
Without serious effort, I can only remember 30-40 pages at once, about the length of a long story. 230 pages in, when I flip back through my draft, it's as if someone else wrote the pages—and today I felt a weird wonder at glimpsing that other's process, even though he's me too, or used to be...
November 12, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Without serious effort, I can only remember 30-40 pages at once, about the length of a long story. 230 pages in, when I flip back through my draft, it's as if someone else wrote the pages—and today I felt a weird wonder at glimpsing that other's process, even though he's me too, or used to be...
Reposted by Matt Bell
NEW EPISODE OUT TODAY! I talked to art historian and curator @brigittevdsande.bsky.social about war, art, fiction, disasters, imagination - join us: issues.org/not-now-but-...
Not Now, But Soon: The Art of Portraying War
Brigitte van der Sande discusses how art humanizes the victims of war and spurs action, and how imagination can be a force for resistance.
issues.org
November 11, 2025 at 9:07 PM
NEW EPISODE OUT TODAY! I talked to art historian and curator @brigittevdsande.bsky.social about war, art, fiction, disasters, imagination - join us: issues.org/not-now-but-...
In my 42-person worldbuilding class—a general studies elective—we read five novels and write about 45 pages of fiction. Yesterday, as we discussed book 5, I told my class how the national media constantly says college students can't read whole novels. And then we scoffed and laughed and got to work.
November 11, 2025 at 7:27 PM
In my 42-person worldbuilding class—a general studies elective—we read five novels and write about 45 pages of fiction. Yesterday, as we discussed book 5, I told my class how the national media constantly says college students can't read whole novels. And then we scoffed and laughed and got to work.
Reposted by Matt Bell
Today is the publication day for WITHOUT CONSENT, a book I am so proud to share with the world, and that the New York Times Book Review says "is years — decades — overdue."
Read more, and order in your preferred format from your favorite retailer here: www.sarahweinman.com/book/without...
Read more, and order in your preferred format from your favorite retailer here: www.sarahweinman.com/book/without...
November 11, 2025 at 12:47 PM
Today is the publication day for WITHOUT CONSENT, a book I am so proud to share with the world, and that the New York Times Book Review says "is years — decades — overdue."
Read more, and order in your preferred format from your favorite retailer here: www.sarahweinman.com/book/without...
Read more, and order in your preferred format from your favorite retailer here: www.sarahweinman.com/book/without...
"What I like most about the speculative is the joy... The exuberance, the joie de lire, the fucking about. It’s such a fun form to work in. You can free yourselves to any degree that you please from constraints that otherwise tend to be invisibly ubiquitous, such as physics, location, and selfhood."
Vajra Chandrasekera (@vajra.me)'s Rakesfall recently received the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction. In this new interview, Senior Books Editor @cxorlando.bsky.social asks him the author about genre boundaries, violence in fiction, and how Le Guin has inspired his writing:
A Conversation With Vajra Chandrasekera, Author of Rakesfall - Reactor
"I think writers, like all artists, have a responsibility to act as human cultural workers in an actual society"
reactormag.com
November 10, 2025 at 5:56 PM
"What I like most about the speculative is the joy... The exuberance, the joie de lire, the fucking about. It’s such a fun form to work in. You can free yourselves to any degree that you please from constraints that otherwise tend to be invisibly ubiquitous, such as physics, location, and selfhood."
"To write is to aspire towards, even to hope for, the mystery of a clearing that is other than the self, the vast windowless sunlit room of living experience. To write is to participate in the struggle to efface oneself. The problem is that the self keeps getting in the way." —Simon Critchley
November 10, 2025 at 4:43 PM
"To write is to aspire towards, even to hope for, the mystery of a clearing that is other than the self, the vast windowless sunlit room of living experience. To write is to participate in the struggle to efface oneself. The problem is that the self keeps getting in the way." —Simon Critchley
Backyard pizzas and backyard beers! Pretty hard to beat on a Saturday night.
November 9, 2025 at 6:22 PM
Backyard pizzas and backyard beers! Pretty hard to beat on a Saturday night.
This was my first 40+ mile running week since my 100K race in February—plus I walked another 40, for an 80-mile week on foot. Feels really great to have covered so much ground as part of my everyday life!
November 9, 2025 at 6:04 PM
This was my first 40+ mile running week since my 100K race in February—plus I walked another 40, for an 80-mile week on foot. Feels really great to have covered so much ground as part of my everyday life!
"I decided to go out for a walk
And do nothing except
Look everybody I see in the eyes
And not be the first to avert my eyes
And I didn’t return for two years...
By which time I was the heavyweight champion of the world
And the expectant father of sixteen children"
—Dan Bern, "True Revolutionaries"
And do nothing except
Look everybody I see in the eyes
And not be the first to avert my eyes
And I didn’t return for two years...
By which time I was the heavyweight champion of the world
And the expectant father of sixteen children"
—Dan Bern, "True Revolutionaries"
"Store employees are now required to smile if they are within 10 feet of a shopper.
They also must make eye contact with and wave to or greet the customer.
If they’re within four feet, the employee should ask how the customer’s day is going or if they need help."
🙄 Won't stop the boycott, y'all.
They also must make eye contact with and wave to or greet the customer.
If they’re within four feet, the employee should ask how the customer’s day is going or if they need help."
🙄 Won't stop the boycott, y'all.
Target is now requiring its employees to smile more
As the holiday season fast approaches, Target is urging its employees to add a little more “jolly” to their work routine.
www.wilx.com
November 8, 2025 at 9:44 PM
"I decided to go out for a walk
And do nothing except
Look everybody I see in the eyes
And not be the first to avert my eyes
And I didn’t return for two years...
By which time I was the heavyweight champion of the world
And the expectant father of sixteen children"
—Dan Bern, "True Revolutionaries"
And do nothing except
Look everybody I see in the eyes
And not be the first to avert my eyes
And I didn’t return for two years...
By which time I was the heavyweight champion of the world
And the expectant father of sixteen children"
—Dan Bern, "True Revolutionaries"
Reposted by Matt Bell
I have one last ARC of my upcoming story collection, The Divide, from Cornerstone Press, February 2026. I’d love to snag another reviewer or interviewer. Send me a DM with your ideas! Thx!
November 8, 2025 at 7:54 PM
I have one last ARC of my upcoming story collection, The Divide, from Cornerstone Press, February 2026. I’d love to snag another reviewer or interviewer. Send me a DM with your ideas! Thx!
Had a flight today get cancelled and rescheduled due to the shutdown, but scuttled the whole trip because I didn't want to deal with the anxiety of the government having anything working by the time I needed to come home. Maybe the basics of the modern world will be back working next year?
November 7, 2025 at 4:47 PM
Had a flight today get cancelled and rescheduled due to the shutdown, but scuttled the whole trip because I didn't want to deal with the anxiety of the government having anything working by the time I needed to come home. Maybe the basics of the modern world will be back working next year?
Halfway through the second draft of a novel, wandering my house unshowered and unshaved, muttering John Barth's "mere busyness in a story’s middle does not necessarily advance the plot" over and over...
November 6, 2025 at 7:43 PM
Halfway through the second draft of a novel, wandering my house unshowered and unshaved, muttering John Barth's "mere busyness in a story’s middle does not necessarily advance the plot" over and over...
END OF THE WORLD HOUSE is my favorite @celtadri.bsky.social novel, and one I'm constantly recommending to people.
I can't believe I let the entire Louvre heist pass me by without recommending my novel END OF THE WORLD HOUSE, which is what happens when the Louvre heists you instead thankyoubookshop.com/item/rPCoGQ_...
End of the World House by Adrienne Celt | Thank You Bookshop
Groundhog Day meets Ling Ma’s Severance in this “brilliant” (PopSugar) and “exhilarating” (The Millions) comedic novel about two young women trying to save their friendship as the world collapses arou...
thankyoubookshop.com
November 6, 2025 at 7:26 PM
END OF THE WORLD HOUSE is my favorite @celtadri.bsky.social novel, and one I'm constantly recommending to people.
When I wrote REFUSE TO BE DONE, I figured where everyone would throw the book across the room or ask for their money back was when I suggested the total rewrite second draft—which I actually think might be the most important part of my process? It's been so great to see it work for so many people!
Also, I was truly horrified the first time I heard @mdbell79.bsky.social talk about doing the second draft as a total rewrite but I am sorry (?) to report it really really works and I actually enjoy it.
November 6, 2025 at 4:38 PM
When I wrote REFUSE TO BE DONE, I figured where everyone would throw the book across the room or ask for their money back was when I suggested the total rewrite second draft—which I actually think might be the most important part of my process? It's been so great to see it work for so many people!
Reposted by Matt Bell
Periodic reminder that I’m doing freelance editing right now! I have experience in both fiction and nonfiction and offer a range of services from coaching to line editing to query letters—reach out if you have a project but are feeling at sea! www.jesszimmerman.com/editing.html
November 6, 2025 at 2:27 PM
Periodic reminder that I’m doing freelance editing right now! I have experience in both fiction and nonfiction and offer a range of services from coaching to line editing to query letters—reach out if you have a project but are feeling at sea! www.jesszimmerman.com/editing.html
Reposted by Matt Bell
This looks incredible!
Two weeks from today, the ASU Worldbuilding Initiative will host "Resistance in Speculative Fiction and Beyond," our final workshop of 2025, with speakers @jennahanchey.bsky.social and Tanvir Akhtar Ahmed! Free and open to the public. Join us in-person in Tempe or on ASU Live!
Resistance in Speculative Fiction and Beyond | ASU Events
In this workshop, our speakers will use speculative thinking, literary criticism, and fiction writing to explore what resistance looks like in both our real world and in the imagined worlds that refle...
asuevents.asu.edu
November 6, 2025 at 12:51 PM
This looks incredible!
Reposted by Matt Bell
Attend if you can! Truly, the Worldbuilding Initiative is a very special and hopeful thing. That it's free to the public and livestreamed? Amazing.
Two weeks from today, the ASU Worldbuilding Initiative will host "Resistance in Speculative Fiction and Beyond," our final workshop of 2025, with speakers @jennahanchey.bsky.social and Tanvir Akhtar Ahmed! Free and open to the public. Join us in-person in Tempe or on ASU Live!
Resistance in Speculative Fiction and Beyond | ASU Events
In this workshop, our speakers will use speculative thinking, literary criticism, and fiction writing to explore what resistance looks like in both our real world and in the imagined worlds that refle...
asuevents.asu.edu
November 5, 2025 at 9:46 PM
Attend if you can! Truly, the Worldbuilding Initiative is a very special and hopeful thing. That it's free to the public and livestreamed? Amazing.
Two weeks from today, the ASU Worldbuilding Initiative will host "Resistance in Speculative Fiction and Beyond," our final workshop of 2025, with speakers @jennahanchey.bsky.social and Tanvir Akhtar Ahmed! Free and open to the public. Join us in-person in Tempe or on ASU Live!
Resistance in Speculative Fiction and Beyond | ASU Events
In this workshop, our speakers will use speculative thinking, literary criticism, and fiction writing to explore what resistance looks like in both our real world and in the imagined worlds that refle...
asuevents.asu.edu
November 5, 2025 at 9:42 PM
Two weeks from today, the ASU Worldbuilding Initiative will host "Resistance in Speculative Fiction and Beyond," our final workshop of 2025, with speakers @jennahanchey.bsky.social and Tanvir Akhtar Ahmed! Free and open to the public. Join us in-person in Tempe or on ASU Live!
Reposted by Matt Bell
Major in Africana Studies or any humanities course like English Literature! You could be mayor of New York City. You could do anything.
November 5, 2025 at 4:49 AM
Major in Africana Studies or any humanities course like English Literature! You could be mayor of New York City. You could do anything.
Our final novel for my Worldbuilding course this semester is BLACK SUN by @rebeccaroanhorse.bsky.social, always a favorite of my students. I'm looking forward to digging into it again starting next week!
November 4, 2025 at 6:04 PM
Our final novel for my Worldbuilding course this semester is BLACK SUN by @rebeccaroanhorse.bsky.social, always a favorite of my students. I'm looking forward to digging into it again starting next week!
"One droplet of the Atlantic reproduces the salinity of the ocean in miniature. Words are similarly saturated with worlds, even in a stammering translation of an event into a story." —Karen Russell, The Antidote
November 4, 2025 at 5:44 PM
"One droplet of the Atlantic reproduces the salinity of the ocean in miniature. Words are similarly saturated with worlds, even in a stammering translation of an event into a story." —Karen Russell, The Antidote