Morgan Bell's Blog

Introducing my debut poetry collection: Idiomatic, For The People

It's not poetry, it's formatting. Australian author, Morgan Bell, squeezes through the crawlspace of fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. A verse debut from a microfiction craftsperson.

"A stunningly original series of poems that are as visually beautiful as they are emotionally haunting. Rich with idioms, the phrases are often subverted to be both a familiar ghost of the original and unsettlingly fresh. The work is intensely concrete - words fading, moving down a funnel, in columns, weaving, waving - creating a structural narrative that makes its own, non-lingual meaning. An exciting poetry collection full of surprise and rich, visual, rhythmic, and semantic treats.”
- Magdalena Ball, Compulsive Reader

Idiomatic, For The People is available on Amazon
- AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/Idiomatic-p...
- US: https://www.amazon.com/Idiomatic-peop...
- UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Idiomatic-pe...

And from independent bookseller Poetry Portal Bookshop
- https://www.facebook.com/commerce/pro...




Rate this title on Goodreads

Drum roll please: Intersection Control on shelves now

The long-anticipated Intersection Control: Collected Works is now available in all good books stores. Order at your local independent bookseller or purchase online.

https://www.amazon.com/Intersection-C...

Shelve it for later on Goodreads: Intersection Control: Collected Works








Now available in a print edition. All the stories in one place. Intersection Control is a collected works including the full content of Sniggerless Boundulations and Laissez Faire (previously only available in ebook) plus some bonus content.





=

+

I asked for recommendations, this is what you told me

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Let me know what you think down below.



NUMBER ONE

My request

I want to read: Experimental/weird short fiction collections, recent release poetry collections (prefer urban short form chapbooks/ pocketbooks), horror anthologies, and contemporary literary short story collections

eg Cate Kennedy, Sonja Deschian, Julie Koh, Haruki Murakami, Margo Lanagan

The results

1. Collected Fiction by Hannu Rajaniemi
2. Dreadful Young Ladies and Other Stories by Kelly Barnhill
3. The Dark and Other Love Stories by Deborah Willis
4. Three Moments of an Explosion by China Miéville
5. Fen by Daisy Johnson
6. Cry Your Way Home by Damien Angelica Walters









NUMBER TWO

The request

I want to read: Novels about clones and/or robots (queer/feminist content an added bonus)

The results

1. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
2. The Third Twin by Ken Follett
3. The Boys from Brazil by Ira Levin
4. A Clone of Your Own? by Arlene Judith Klotzko
5. House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds
6. The Mechanical by Ian Tregillis
7. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
8. Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson
9. Four Futures: Life After Capitalism by Peter Frase
10. Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill
11. He, She and It by Marge Piercy
12. Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm
13. A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers
14. Brave New Girl by Rachel Vincent
15. The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye by David Lagercrantz
16. Cyteen by C.J. Cherryh

Are you a writer in Newcastle, Australia?

I run a little Facebook group where I post about local events, courses, groups, festivals, and comps.

Anyone can join and anyone is welcome to post about their own launches, speaking gigs, anthology calls, prizes and accomplishments.

If you are a writer in Newcastle or the larger Hunter Region this group will be very relevant to you. Covering local happenings from Port Stephens, Lake Macquarie, Maitland, Cessnock, Central Coast.

Join us at Hunter Writing Community:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/35847...

We have an extensive events calendar and about 400 members.

I got stuck in an anagram loop

Inspired by all my brilliant poet friends, I embarked upon a suite-of-poetry project which I have become buried beneath.

It all started with a few anagrams. Constrained to ten unique letters. I thought I would get a few clever phrases, maybe craft a nice sentence, or a flow from one big word to some increasingly smaller words.

It ended in researching rare igneous rock minerals, buying two whiteboards to work on, a folder and reams of note-pad paper. Typing, printing, cutting up into ticker-tape slivers, arranging, re-listing into groups, re-typing, re-whiteboarding ... it went on and on.

Did I go to the stationery section of kmart? Do I need my own mini-whiteboard like I'm in an office? Think of all the activities I can do!

A post shared by Morgan Bell (@queenboxi) on Feb 27, 2018 at 11:59pm PST

Rambling rose. Scrambling prose. #wordgames #wordplay #arranging

A post shared by Morgan Bell (@queenboxi) on May 8, 2018 at 7:28am PDT

More word games. The engineer's approach to poetry. #adhdbrain #visualaid #miniwhiteboard #nightproductivity

A post shared by Morgan Bell (@queenboxi) on May 21, 2018 at 10:51am PDT

The anagrams have taken over my life. I cannot escape the anagrams. #psychologicalhorror

A post shared by Morgan Bell (@queenboxi) on Jun 29, 2018 at 4:22am PDT

Valentines Day: What do Abigail, Annie Wilkes, and Madame de Merteuil have in common? #WiHM

This Valentines Day read about "scary women" and the things women should be afraid of.

As part of Women in Horror Month, I wrote a thinkpiece over at the Jeannie Wycherley book blog.

You can expect musings on gender, relationships, control, autonomy, and body horror, in reference to the literary canon.

"What kind of female characters do we find scary? Evil queens, witches, and stepmothers could be contenders – from Grimm to Narnia, Wonderland, Oz, and Westeros – but their behaviour is largely predictable. They are caricatures. The female ghosts in The Woman In Black or Wuthering Heights are quite chilling, until they are revealed, and we empathise with their tragic back-stories. Their spectral presence says more about the men that experience them. Similarly abusive mothers, whilst hurtful and destructive, are often revealed to be ... "

Continue reading here: https://www.jeanniewycherley.co.uk/20...

Let's Talk Day Jobs, Anthology Submissions, Workshops, Disabilities, And New Talents

I was a featured "Writer Of The Week" over at Let's Talk Writing. The five posts were:

{ MONDAY: Should writers keep their day jobs? }
https://www.facebook.com/groups/16686...

{ TUESDAY: Attitudes towards anthologies }
https://www.facebook.com/groups/16686...

{ WEDNESDAY: Workshops/courses vs writers groups }
https://www.facebook.com/groups/16686...

{ THURSDAY: Writing with disability/physical limitations }
https://www.facebook.com/groups/16686...

{ FRIDAY: Where do you discover new books/authors? }
https://www.facebook.com/groups/16686...

Shared on Write Of Passage (Arts), Gold Coast Novel Writers, Gold Coast Writers' Association, Girls on Key | Feel free to share on any writing community pages/groups or join the discussion (all posts are public)

The Power of Independence By Morgan Bell

That was me three years ago ...

Do weird short allegories make a difference? ...

Battlestar Galactica, Westworld, Orphan Black, Legion, Mr. Robot, Firefly ...

One of my favorite books is Angela Carter’s The ...

For short story lovers, I recommend ...

For the ends of these sentences and more see the full article at: http://kadenver.blogspot.com.au/2018/...



Thank you to K.A. Denver for hosting my guest post on her author blog. Check out her books here on Goodreads:

For fans of Lovecraftian horror, Lynchian suspense, and the growing movement of experimental microfiction

Q. Tell us about some of the characters that people your stories.
A. Some of the main characters from the stories include: A socially awkward young woman, an unappreciated housewife, an expectant mother, a paranoid office-worker, an ex-con on community service, a Russian man on a date, a patient at a mental asylum, an early incarnation of Santa Claus, a genderqueer hippy, an a devilish hospital inspector.

Q. And which one of them is really just you in disguise?
A. ...

For the answer and much more see the full interview: http://www.readfree.ly/archives/32090...

Morgan Bell's Indie Advent series during December

In the lead up to xmas, I am creating original content every day in the form of Indie Advent images. I have hand-picked twenty-five xmas quotes - from Peter Dinklage to Stephen Fry, Maya Angelou to Shirley Temple - that are musings on the joys and sorrows of the silly season.



View the entire series on my Facebook page: www.facebook.com/morganleighbell

Or my Instagram: www.instagram.com/queenboxi

Or my Twitter: twitter.com/queenboxi/

I would love for you to share/retweet the images from this unique series. It is a celebration of indie authors. Take the opportunity to caption your shares and retweets with links to your books.

Have a happy and safe holiday season!