Genre Short story Name Matt Clark | Role Short story writer | |
Died 1998, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States Education Louisiana State University Books Hook Man speaks, Born a Hero: The Legend R, GodCARE: Your HFO (Heavenl, Inspirations for the Soul | ||
Matt Clark (1967–1998) was a prolific short story writer and the author of the novel Hook Man Speaks. He held an MFA from Louisiana State University, and while a graduate student there, he was a fiction editor of the New Delta Review. He became the director of the graduate writing program at LSU at the age of 29, and he died of liver and colon cancer in 1998 at the age of 31.
Contents
His friends and fellow authors, Michael Griffith and Josh Russell, are responsible for continued efforts to bring his work to print. Clark's fiction has appeared in The Alaska Quarterly Review, Cream City Review, Paragraph, Gulf Coast, One Story, and Flyway.
Style and themes
Fascinated by tall tales and urban legends, Clark was in the process of inventing a new kind of Southwest magical realism, part Mark Twain, part Gabriel Garcia Marquez. His most successful story was "The West Texas Sprouting of Loman Happenstance," which was optioned for film. A script was written by Hollywood actor Brent Spiner.
Clark's writing exemplifies a playful and absurd brand of wit.
His writings include several experiments with perspective. In "What I Know About Ham Ratchetslaw" the narrator and hero is actually a goat. In "Baton Rouge: A Doctor Story" the lens focuses in and out between the lives of several doctors and those of mere garden snails. "The Secret Heart of Christ" is simultaneously a story and not a story.
His use of magical realism is seen most clearly in "The West Texas Sprouting of Loman Happenstance", which features a tribe of chameleons piling on top of one another and changing colors in order to recreate famous works of art. In "What I Know About Ham Ratchetslaw, Trombonist", a small town is besieged and encircled by thousands of hypnotized armadillos.
The geography of Clark's stories is usually limited to the southwest region of the United States. His fiction is set primarily in Texas, although he does stray to Louisiana and New Mexico on occasion.
Matt Clark Editor's Choice Prize
The New Delta Review literary magazine gives a yearly award in Clark's honor. The Matt Clark Prizes are awarded to works of fiction and poetry that compellingly challenge expectations, narratively or otherwise, and are conscious about the way they use form.