How the Moon Works In How the Moon Works, globally underappreciated author Matt Rowan, strives for literary greatness and fails heroically. Cobalt Press
Matt Rowan
Matt Rowan lives in Los Angeles. He edits Untoward and is author of the collections, Big Venerable, Why God Why, and How the Moon Works (Cobalt Press, 2021). He's placed work in Cosmonauts Avenue, HAD, and others.
Los Angeles , CA, United States
Books
Selected work (24 publications)
The Shredder Everyone who worked there enjoyed the work they did, for the most part. It was a graphics interface firm. They specialized in the interfacing of graphics, which usually was more than enough explanation for anyone outside the firm
anxiety
dark comedy
Weird Fiction
Diagnosis Many Tiny Crabs Inside of YouI was first diagnosed with cancer, but then it turned out it was actually many tiny crabs inside of me.
2 StoriesOne is about the business of banking. The other is about a world full of hands. Need I say more?
War in PeaceThere's a war brewing in peace.
experimental
dark comedy
Hot People Hot people are burning up.
humor
Don't Be Evil. Let the words written on a notecard be your conscience.
dark comedy
fear
deadly sins
Resurrection Mary and the Transmigration of Souls They’re forcing us by video on the Big Screens to run fast again, “as fast as you can,” and if we choose not to it’s at the risk of great bodily harm and possible gruesome death. Very hard to ignore their order that way.
Spots Spots were dotting things in a peculiar way, all of a sudden.
A Party Already The idea of it wasn’t quick to be gotten rid of. I’d been invited to a party, again.
Suffice it to say, after some internal debate, I attended.
Ladder Man “I can be creepy with just a ladder,” Ladder Man said to me on the other side of my second-story window.
FrontiersmenSpace is a great time. It’s a lot of fun being an astronaut out in it. I especially enjoy the space tether that allows me to dangle out in the void of it all. I love having the job of retrieving space junk.
All of Me All of me is everywhere. It was like a willful explosion of me. One day: boom and it’s out of here and all over everywhere. I’m all over everywhere, and for that reason I’m feeling gross.
Magic ComputerWe found out that our computer ran on magic.
Mom and Dad had said it was supposed to be electricity that computers ran on, before we’d bought it and brought it home.
Bad Traffic There was a scarecrow on the highway, one day. We drivers noticed it impaled and hanging limp on a rusted pole pressed into a slab of the concrete median.
Like a sword in stone.
Arms Everything in the school was normal from the outside. It was normal on the inside, too.
There were just a few subtle differences distinguishing it from most schools you’ve probably seen. And one major difference.
How Meat Could Be the Next Big Thing I found the heart pumping and spurting blood from its many severed veins. I was already running late for my important meeting. It seemed like fate. It seemed like fate because I was also completely unprepared for the meeting.
Advertising Company selling some brand of flake cereal saying every flake’s a meal.
Company ad will have Danny DeVito and Bruce Campbell on a toboggan, while it’s snowing, waiting for a phone call from a very important boss.
The Possibility of GhostsWe’d heard what happened in the old place. How it once belonged to a young couple, a man and a woman who were roommates and friends but nothing more, no romantic entanglement to speak of.
Clean TeethFoolish to forget. You did it at your own peril.
Teeth are evaluated clean when you go to the dentist.
Your Audible Itinerary always alerted you it was time to go, when at its regular interval it was time to go.
When the robots arrivedThe robots stood apart from us, some meters away, blandly surveying the unfolding scene with dull-glowing eyes.
Pay Us MoneyPay us money! said the bill that was taped to the door of Frida’s apartment.
Always Looking for Ways to Forgive Myself for the Things I Can’t Forgive Myself forYou can’t just forgive yourself for the horrible things you do to yourself and the things you do that harm other people, though you might want to, though you wish you could.
A Place I'd Like to Go Here’s the truth, as I understand it.
There is a place surrounded by the mountains that no one has ever returned from. There was a town there with living people at one point and there’s some reason to believe people are still alive and well there.
Must Be Santa, Santa Claus A sudden blur, a momentary riot, bumping, clanging on the hood of my car. Then, just as quickly, the blur vanished out of view and back into the snow flurry that partially obscured my vision.