Pre-order while it's still at the printer

EWN'er Matt Bell's chapbook, How the Broken Lead the Blind, has been sent to the printer by Willows Wept Press (run by EWN'er Molly Gaudry), and will be shipping later this month.  As there are only going to be 100 copies printed, and Matt has been developing a good sized following recently, I'd order my copy asap!

Update (January 12, 2009):  Only 23 copies are left to PRE-ORDER.  Glad I ordered mine back on December 3!

Here's what a few people you may have heard of have to say about the book (cover art by Christy Call):

"Matt Bell is a beautiful contradiction, a romanticist who wields his pen without mercy. In How the Broken Lead the Blind, Bell's eye for the small details that bind is undeniable. His collection of short-short stories wastes no time with extraneous prattle, delivering instead characters and tales that rattle the senses with stark surprise. In an uncompromisingly good gathering of fiction, Bell gives us worlds upon worlds through the imagination and observations of a gifted new talent."
—Steven Gillis, author of Temporary People and Giraffes

"These stories are at once big-hearted and humorous, containing many surprising truths. The writing is measured and penetrating, precise but with warmth. Matt Bell is a maker of fine fictions."

—William Walsh, author of Without Wax and Questionstruck

"Matt Bell can do what so many fiction writers can't: Matt Bell can make anything happen."

—Michael Kimball, author of Dear Everybody and The Way the Family Got Away

"There is an insistent rhythm in everything Matt Bell writes. Not the thudding hammer blows of fraudulent drama, not the drip of leaking satire, certainly not the jolly click and tap of a story that could be--ought to have been--texted. It's gentle and enormously powerful: the beating of a heart. It's hard not to think of Bell's work as a living, breathing thing--which is in fact what it is, holding us in its ebb and flow, consoling and inspiring us the way real, true art always has and always will."

—Gary Amdahl, author of Visigoth and I am Death

“Matt Bell has an uncanny ability to cut to our inner needs, our fears and desires, our wishes to be both with another, yet to be alone at the same time. The stories within How the Broken Lead the Blind will reel you in sentence to wonderful sentence, and leave you wanting more.”

—Dan Wickett, Director of Dzanc Books, founder of Emerging Writers Network

“How the Broken Lead the Blind punctures relationships, bleeds the surreal, threads gut-punches through needles. An absolutely brilliant read.”

—J. A. Tyler, author of The Girl in the Black Sweater

“Like a perfect rock album, Matt Bell's How the Broken Lead the Blind both celebrates and explodes the form. The form here is flash fiction, and while there may be others who are doing it as well, there is certainly nobody better than Bell. Like the songs on Sgt. Pepper or Odelay or Paul's Boutique or [insert name of genre-busting, wildly inventive and eminently satisfying album here], each of these stories offers a jump-cut into the pain, fear, hope, joy, and questions of everyday life. Which is to say, Matt Bell does in 500 or 1,000 words what it takes most writers—if they're lucky, talented, innovative, and soulful—about five times the space to accomplish.”

—Dave Housley, author of Ryan Seacrest is Famous

“Matt Bell delivers ten inventive stories rich in language, ideas and catharsis that will leave you hungering for his next collection.”

—Steven McDermott, editor of Storyglossia, author of Winter of Different Directions

"Matt Bell's short-short stories gush with intricate details of love, loss, and sorrow. Each story holds a miracle waiting to be unearthed, as if this young writer was in all our lives, recording those subtle, key moments that pass quietly but speak to us forever. He is a writer with so much to say, but like with those moments, he understands they don't have to be loud, or long, to bestow their greatest impact."

—Michael Czyzniejewski, author of Elephants in Our Bedroom

"Matt Bell writes startling stories about personal connections, how they break under the slightest pressure, how they mend--all stories in which occur fantastic little twists: a severed hand appears, a piano gives up its secret, disoriented geese tumble from the sky. How the Broken Lead the Blind is a useful relationship manual for those of us still waiting to receive our very own hair box."

—Ryan Call, author of Pocket Finger

Sounds pretty damn good to me!

Comments

[Molly Gaudry]

Thanks for posting this, Dan.

Have a great weekend,
M.

[barry]

pre-ordered my copy a month ago.

can't wait

[prof harris]

I've ordered mine and can hardly wait. :)