Matthew F. Amati

I'm Matthew F. Amati, a science fiction, fantasy, and other-things writer. About 50 of my short stories have appeared in print or online and I have some books. I'm an occasional drop-in at Armadillocon in Austin TX, I do editorial work for the mighty Space Squid, and sometimes I can be seen dropping things off the moon onto the heads of people who type two spaces after a period.

Short Stories.

These are most of the stories I've published. Some of them are in anthologies that you have to buy, but others are online.

Recent Work

2022-2024

Smildrin with a Cauldron (Dragon Gems Anthology, Summer 2024)

4BR, 2BA, 5Ghosts (Blood Moon Rising, July 2024)

Three Holes in the Saint's Bathroom Window (Oddball Magazine, July 2024)

To Rundle the Parlous Hoon (Weird Lit Magazine, June 2024)

Notes on the Disappearance of the Headless Child (The Cafe Irreal, August 2023)

Said The Moonlit Moth To The Horse Half-Dead (in the Tumbled Tales anthology, June 2023)

About Her Bones So Bleak and Bare (Flash Fiction Online, March 2023)

Please Do Not Poke The Ordinary Man (Fleas On The Dog, February 2023)

The Rude Mechanicals Find a Three-Letter Word for God Space Squid (October 2022)

Where The Wind Blows the Water "Mermaidens" anthology (September 2022)

Vs. The Giant (Daily Science Fiction, August 2022)

The Innovators (The Cafe Irreal, August 2022)

Older stories

2018-2021

Exam Questions For The Story That Killed Its Readers (The Cafe Irreal, November 2021)

“Infraction” The Cafe Irreal (Winter 2020)

“The Fine Print” Sci Fi Lampoon, October 2020

Planet Earth Just Blew And There’s Nothing I Can Do (Daily Science Fiction, September 2020)

“Rats” Danse Macabre (August 2020)

Apocalypse Rock (Across The Universe anthology of Beatles sci-fi, December 2019)

The Invention of Everything (Dragon Roots, Fall 2019)

Three Tales for the Headless Child (The Fabulist, October 2018)

“Fed” (Jitter Press, October 2018)

Forever Hold Your Timepiece (Dragon Roots, Fall 2018)

Let The Day Be Darkness (Fabula Argentea, July 2018)

“Shuffle Duffle Muzzle Muff” (Daily Science Fiction, April 2018).

“My Parents Went to Vega and All I Got Was This Lousy Robot.” (Antipodean SF, February 2018)

Early Stories

2014-2017

“Defender of the Flesh” (Bewildering Stories, December 2017)

Tale Without Fairies (Syntax & Salt, December 2017)

Our Lady Cinderella of the Dying World. (The Cafe Irreal, November 2017)

“Fresh Meat at the Murderhutch” Featured in the companion book to A Field Guide to Evil.

Afterlife in America” and “Endings” (13 Myna Birds, June 2017.)

Space Pussy! (Nasty: Fetish Fights Back, May 2017

“I Find Them in Bags” and “Come, There Is Ham Here“ (Clockwise Cat #38)

My Bologna Has a First Name (Daily Science Fiction, March 2017)

To Comfort the Headless Child (Flash Fiction Online, March 2017)

In Zarbok’s Kitchen (Cosmic Roots & Eldritch Shores, Feb. 2017) (subscription required).

The Voyage of the Texarkana (Cafe Irreal, Feb 2017)

Sky Widows (Perihelion SF, December 2016)

The Water Tastes Like Centipedes & The World’s About to End (White Knuckle Press, December 2016).

Let Me Squeeze Your Islets of Langerhans (Cafe Irreal, Winter 2016)

Last Day of the Universe (Daily Science Fiction, September 2016)

Plastic Mom and Dad (Darkfuse [subscription required], August 2016.)

The Rude Mechanicals Vs. the Anti-Copernican Platypus (Space Squid, July 2016)

The Persistence of Tim (Sci Phi Journal, March 2016)

To Whup A Universe (Space Squid, December 2015)

The Rude Mechanicals (Space Squid, July 2015)

Face Time (Flash Fiction Online, February 2015)

The Cratch, Thy Keeper (Flash Fiction Online, January 2015)

Novels and Book Projects

Some books from the smallest of small presses, some unpublished works, and a scurrilous Calvin & Hobbes remix

Loompaland

Loompaland unwraps a sticky confection of workers' rights, entrepreneur-worship, industrial food production, and the absurdities of unchecked corporate power. Gross candies roll off the lines, and the warning signs list all the fascinating ways a Loompa can be killed. Bill P and his fellow Loompas ricochet from triumph to disaster and back, in a novel that is fierce, funny, angry, and shot through with scenes of hilarity and terror.

Harp for a Broken Hand

A work in search of a publisher, this dark fantasy sends a half dead unicorn and a twist-fingered harpist on a desperate quest through a land of bric-a-brac. Old enemies don't reconcile, past crimes aren't forgiven, and the half-dead horse must become all the way dead again.

The Bible

The original BIBLE worked just fine back when people owned camels, ate locusts and wild honey, dwelt in the Land of Nod. But who does those things anymore? We are too busy paying the water bill, seeing the documentary, locking the garage. The new Bible by Matthew F. Amati is rethought, retranslated, reimagined. Out of its fragmentary mutterings emerges a hammer-blow of nonsensical perfect sense.

Boy Und Beast

From famed Croation anarchist and scofflaw Zarkus Bloot comes BOY UND BEAST, the riveting comic series about a demonic tiny man and his Protean shapeshifting familiar.

For Sale: Baby Shoes, Feet Included

18 stories of the weird and macabre. In "To Comfort the Headless Child" a nightmarish infant screams as he's read twisted Dr. Seuss stories like "Rat In The Hat." "Our Lady Cinderella of the Dying World" gives us evil stepsisters who toss expensive furniture onto garbage scows, while the cobbler hero of "One of a Perfect Pair" must avoid being made into human-skin sandals himself.

Konstantinople

A lethargic student hides in his room from his domineering uncle and halfheartedly composes a fantasy epic. Friends pop in and out of the window to add their own chunks of text, which adapt themselves to an evolving fictional universe, often in hilarious and surprising ways. Ship-swallowing whales, riddling rodents, zookeepers, detectives, and moon-men all conspire against reason and reality.

Screenplays

I've written screenplays for some short horror films.

Fly Baby

Story by Matthew F. Amati and Joel Sacramento. Screenplay by Matthew F. Amati. Directed by Joel Sacramento.

Contact

Send me a message.


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