Publications, Readings, Interviews & More
Official Bio:
Matty Byloos is a writer, painter, and therapist specializing in men's work. For more than five years, he was a union printer at Technicolor and Deluxe Labs in Hollywood, which became the backdrop for his recently completed novel, A Quiet Violence. He's earned degrees in English, Painting, and Clinical Mental Health Counseling (Santa Clara University 1996, Art Center College of Design 2001, Oregon State University 2021, respectively), and his previous books include Don't Smell the Floss (Write Bloody Books, 2009) and Rope (Smalldoggies Press, 2014). A former member of Tom Spanbauer's Dangerous Writing workshop, Byloos writes about masculinity, grief, creativity, and the stories people inherit from one another, in Portland, OR.
Selected Publications:
Orion Magazine; NAILED Magazine; Everyday Genius; Matchbook; The Magazine of Bizarro Fiction Vol. 5; Stoked; Bomb Blog; In Heaven, Everything Is Fine: Fiction Inspired by David Lynch; Nouns of Assemblage, Ed. Housefire; The People's Apocalypse (Microcosm Publishing, 2013); ORION Magazine; The Untold Gaze, Selected Paintings by Stephen O’Donnell (with accompanying text by various authors).
Readings and Appearances
The 6th Annual Poets & Writers Live event, October 17, 2015, at the Pacific Northwest College of Art's Mediatheque theater, reading with Tom Spanbauer and Margaret Malone.
Grief Rites Reading, Post 134, Portland, 2015.
The Small Doggies Reading Series ran from September 2010 through June 2012 in Portland, Oregon, hosted by Matty Byloos and Carrie Ivy Byloos. Originally conceived as a way to bring the Portland literary community together with local and traveling writers from all over the country, the series feature both musical guests and writers drawn from across all styles, genres, and stages of one’s career. Past guests included Lidia Yuknavitch, Monica Drake, Alexis Smith, Amelia Gray, and Zach Schomburg, and took place first at Cafe Magnolia, later at the Blue Monk, with special events taking place at venues like Literary Arts and annual AWP offsite readings. Read coverage from Portland Mercury and Portland Monthly and Literary Arts.
AWP (Association of Writers) Annual Conference, offsite reading events including: Seattle (2014), Boston (2013), Chicago (2012).
AWP 2013 Boston, Panel Participant: Only Half as Crazy as We Seem: Exploring Unconventional Strategies for Indie Lit Startups. (Steve Westbrook, Matty Byloos, Carrie Seitzinger, J.A. Tyler, Skyler Schulze).
Literary Deathmatch Matty Byloos and Josh Atlas, Victors: San Francisco, Ep. 25, January 2010.
Portland Mercury Littlest Palooza, 2010.
Tour for Don’t Smell the Floss and other readings have included: UCLA Hammer Museum’s Reading Series, with Tara Ison, curated by Benjamin Weissman (2004); Skylight Books, Los Feliz, CA; Beyond Baroque, Venice, CA; {open} books, Long Beach, CA, and others.
Interviews & Reviews
Self-Publishing Review, June 2009.
The Next Best Book Blog, April 2010.
The Fanzine, Jamie Gadette, June 2009.
Small Press Reviews, February 2010.
Philadelphia Story, July 2010.
Books & Blurbs
Don’t Smell the Floss, Write Bloody Books 2009. Short story collection.
Description: A fantastical short story collection on love, daydreaming, and bizarre psychological drama. Like pop songs that have overdosed on camera cleaning fluid and pills, Matty Byloos's short stories are most definitely NOT traditional ideas on the subjects of love, daydreaming, and the psychological dramas that have become an unavoidable part of the human condition.
“I was kittied to death by these stories. Matty Byloos's fiction doesn't go down smooth, and that's a good thing: his sentences are hot blurts that bust rudely and hilariously into the reader's consciousness.”
― Andrew Leland, The Believer
ROPE, Smalldoggies Press 2014. Short story collection.
Description: In this lurid novel-in-stories, The Motorcycle Gang, a mythic and silent anti-hero whose very presence foretells the coming of the end of the world, descends upon the land. Cast against a dystopian backdrop and set in the near-distant future, the country has devolved into two capital cities: Las Vegas and Detroit. When everyone learns of the end of times, society comes unhinged and anarchy rules the day. But The Motorcycle Gang has a secret that no one else knows.
“Rope is totally fascinating. Matty Byloos’s precise, crookedly nailed sentences seem to be chiseling the story at large as you read, their signage as fresh and mysterious as the broken branches and footprints of a forest’s newly lost visitor. And yet everything is so, so clear. Really beautiful.'”
― Dennis Cooper, author of Closer, Frisk, Period, God Jr., and The Marbled Swarm.
"Rope presents an America of the near future that is literally polarized between two inland cities with seemingly irreconcilable values. The time is ripe for a Messiah. Told as a parable, this improbable vision becomes increasingly plausible. Simple and vivid, Rope is a scary and disarming book."
― Chris Kraus, author of Summer of Hate and Torpor
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