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I write fiction primarily. My work has appeared in places including Catapult, Tin House, and Vol.1 Brooklyn. I've received a fellowship from the Tin House Winter Workshop. My debut novel is forthcoming from <a href="https://bookhugpress.ca/shop/author/marta-balcewicz/big-shadow-by-marta-balcewicz/">Book*hug</a>.
I'm represented by Emma Patterson at Brandt & Hochman: epatterson [at] bromasite [dot] com
1501 Broadway #2310
New York, NY
10036
You can e-mail me here: martawriting [at] gmail [dot] com
Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/wiczcraft/?hl=en">@wiczcraft</a>
Twitter, if you must: <a href="https://twitter.com/MartaBalcewicz?lang=en">@MartaBalcewicz</a>
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<h1>One day I will move the comics from my published works list and also scan unpublished comics and put them all on this one page. That day is not today. But it is soon.</h1>
<div id="joey"><img src="JoeyRamone.jpg"/></div>
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<div id="work">creative things:
<a href="https://catapult.co/stories/marta-balcewicz-short-story-the-summer-of-bssz">fiction: "summer of bssz" (catapult)</a>
<a href="https://www.passagesnorth.com/passagesnorthcom/2020/3/27/ripe-bananas-by-marta-balcewicz">fiction: "ripe bananas" (passages north)</a>
<a href="https://www.washingtonsquarereview.com/">fiction: "burger bite" (washington square review - issue 44)</a>
<a href="http://greensbororeview.org/issue/fall-2019-issue-106/">fiction: "bark" (the greensboro review)</a>
<a href="http://monkeybicycle.net/x-names/">fiction: "x names" (monkeybicycle)</a>
<a href="http://www.hobartpulp.com/web_features/stephanie-loves-stephanie">fiction: "stephanie loves stephanie" (hobart)</a>
<a href="https://books.catapult.co/products/tiny-crimes-very-short-tales-of-mystery-and-murder-pre-order">fiction: "good hair" in <em>tiny crimes</em> (catapult)</a>
<a href="http://tinhouse.com/a-guided-tour-of-the-sistine-chapel-ceiling/">fiction: "a guided tour of the sistine chapel ceiling" (tin house online)</a>
<a href="http://therumpus.net/2018/05/enough-the-type-of-boy-you-were-taught-to-want/">comic: "salty dog" (the rumpus)</a>
<a href="https://theoffingmag.com/micro/mad/">poetry: "mad" (the offing)</a>
<a href="boulevard.jpg">poetry: "godzilla" (boulevard)</a>
<a href="malahatpoem.jpg">poetry: "fetus charles atlas" (malahat review)</a>
<a href="http://www.vol1brooklyn.com/2018/02/11/sunday-stories-cheers-for-drowning-girls/">fiction: "cheers for drowning girls" (vol.1 brooklyn)</a>
<a href="https://agnionline.bu.edu/poetry/natasha-writes-back">poetry: "natasha writes back"</a> and <a href="https://agnionline.bu.edu/poetry/bonnie-parkers-photoshoot">"bonnie parker's photoshoot" (AGNI online)</a>
<a href="prism.jpg">poetry: "this is east euro" (PRISM international) *pushcart nominee!</a>
<a href="https://www.thenormalschool.com/blog/2017/10/9/thanks-for-finally-joining-the-20th-century-since-its-already-over-by-marta-balcewicz">comic: "thanks for finally joining the 20th century since it's already over" (the normal school-online)</a>
<a href="https://catapult.co/stories/millo-my-american-armadillo">non-fic: "millo, my american armadillo" (catapult)</a>
<a href="https://pitheadchapel.com/common-weeds/">fiction: "common weeds" (pithead chapel)</a>
<a href="https://www.barrelhousemag.com/blogall/2017/8/24/le-tigre-amour-by-marta-balcewicz">comic: "le tigre amour" (barrelhouse)</a>
<a href="https://www.minolareview.com/marta-balcewicz">fiction: "women in space" (minola review)</a>
<a href="http://puritan-magazine.com/new-tenant/">poetry: "new tenant" (the puritan)</a>
<a href="http://www.hobartpulp.com/web_features/caveat-emptor-baby">comic: "caveat emptor, baby" (hobart)</a>
<a href="http://www.hobartpulp.com/web_features/autocorrect">comic: "autocorrect" (hobart)</a>
reviews and articles, etc.:
<a href="https://blog.pshares.org/bad-people-and-bad-dreams-in-a-door-behind-a-door/">review: "a door behind a door" by yelena moskovich (ploughshares)</a>
<a href="http://https://blog.pshares.org/the-hare-by-melanie-finn/">review: "the hare" by melanie finn (ploughshares)</a>
<a href="http://blog.pshares.org/index.php/many-people-die-like-you-by-lina-wolff/">review: "many people die like you" by lina wolff (ploughshares)</a>
<a href="http://blog.pshares.org/index.php/ha-seong-nans-bluebeards-first-wife/">review: "bluebeard's first wife" by ha seong-nan (ploughshares)</a>
<a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/travel/destinations/the-majestically-creepy-towns-at-the-heart-of-twinpeaks/article29660457/">photos: twin peaks (globe & mail)</a>
<a href="gmcovers.jpg">photos: pretty places on/in the globe (globe & mail)</a>
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<div id="bspic"><img class="cover" src="bscover.jpg"/></div>
My debut novel BIG SHADOW is forthcoming from <a href="https://bookhugpress.ca/shop/author/marta-balcewicz/big-shadow-by-marta-balcewicz/">Book*hug Press</a> on May 16, 2023.
You can pre-order it from your <a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781771668316">local indepedent bookstore</a>, the press's <a href="https://bookhugpress.ca/shop/author/marta-balcewicz/big-shadow-by-marta-balcewicz/">website</a>, <a href="https://bookshop.org/">bookshop.org</a>, and other places that support the book & lit community.
<strong>From the back cover:</strong>
In an unnamed town in the summer of 1998, Judy is an isolated and inexperienced teenager on the cusp of adulthood struggling to craft an identity for herself—especially as the artist she wants to be.
There is little help around her. Her only friends are increasingly obsessed with a cultish belief in a coming “Big Shadow.” Her mother is afraid of life and finds solace in TV shows. At her lowest point, Judy meets Maurice Blunt, a visiting summer poetry class professor who is a “has-been” fixture of the 1970s NYC punk music scene. Judy believes Maurice—a man more than twice her age desperately seeking lost adoration—is the ticket out of her current life. Soon, she begins taking secret weekend trips to visit him.
Judy’s visits to his apartment in New York bring hopes of belonging to the city’s cultural world and making a living as a video artist. With each trip and frustrated promise, however, she feels the creeping realization that there is a price to pay for her golden ticket entry into this insular and moribund scene. Judy must navigate the shifting power dynamics with her aging gatekeeper and the possibility of building an early adult identity alone.
An affecting novel of psychological nuance and dark humour, Big Shadow explores the costs of self-deceit, fandom, and tenuous ambitions, exposing the lies we’ll tell ourselves and the promises we’ll make to edge closer to what we want… or what we think we want.
<strong>Praise for Big Shadow:</strong>
“Preternatural, radiating warmth and coldness and colour and light, Big Shadow brims with intelligence and wit. While one world flickers in the background, our narrator enters another, but by the end, we see that the flickering is, amazingly, reality too. I never quite knew where this novel was taking me, which is exactly where I wanted to be going.” —Amina Cain, author of Indelicacy
“Marta Balcewicz’s Big Shadow is a deft portrait of artistic ambition and the troubled pursuit of truth. This story of everyday grifters—the small town proselytizers and desperate musicians—captures how difficult it is to untangle oneself from the narratives that are imposed. Smart, ironic, and tender, with prose as sharp as a scam, Big Shadow is the first of many excellent Balcewicz novels to come.” —Isle McElroy, author of People Collide and The Atmospherians
“Big Shadow is a quietly radical novel, in which a strange woman in an absurd world disorients us, so the story can remind us that actually, it’s this life that is absurd, it is we who are strange. Marta Balcewicz’s unflagging focus on the beauty of the world’s lost and forgotten things beseeches us to stay still, just for a second, and pay attention. Funny, moving, and a pure delight.” —Thea Lim, Scotiabank Giller Prize shortlisted author of An Ocean of Minutes
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<div id="unnamed yet">creative things:
<a href="https://www.passagesnorth.com/passagesnorthcom/2020/3/27/ripe-bananas-by-marta-balcewicz">fiction: "ripe bananas" (passages north)</a>
<a href="https://www.washingtonsquarereview.com/">fiction: "burger bite" (washington square review - issue 44)</a>
<a href="http://greensbororeview.org/issue/fall-2019-issue-106/">fiction: "bark" (the greensboro review)</a>
<a href="http://monkeybicycle.net/x-names/">fiction: "x names" (monkeybicycle)</a>
<a href="http://littlefiction.com/beta/2018Flash_MartaBalcewicz.html">fiction: "daddy rat king" (little fiction)</a>
<a href="http://www.hobartpulp.com/web_features/stephanie-loves-stephanie">fiction: "stephanie loves stephanie" (hobart)</a>
<a href="https://books.catapult.co/products/tiny-crimes-very-short-tales-of-mystery-and-murder-pre-order">fiction: "good hair" in <em>tiny crimes</em> (black balloon/catapult)</a>
<a href="http://tinhouse.com/a-guided-tour-of-the-sistine-chapel-ceiling/">fiction: "a guided tour of the sistine chapel ceiling" (tin house online)</a>
<a href="http://therumpus.net/2018/05/enough-the-type-of-boy-you-were-taught-to-want/">comic: "salty dog" (the rumpus)</a>
<a href="https://theoffingmag.com/micro/mad/">poetry: "mad" (the offing)</a>
<a href="boulevard.jpg">poetry: "godzilla" (boulevard)</a>
<a href="https://jellyfishreview.wordpress.com/2018/04/02/for-the-love-of-music-by-marta-balcewicz/">fiction: "for the love of music" (jellyfish review)</a>
<a href="malahatpoem.jpg">poetry: "fetus charles atlas" (malahat review)</a>
<a href="http://www.vol1brooklyn.com/2018/02/11/sunday-stories-cheers-for-drowning-girls/">fiction: "cheers for drowning girls" (vol.1 brooklyn)</a>
<a href="https://agnionline.bu.edu/poetry/natasha-writes-back">poetry: "natasha writes back"</a> and <a href="https://agnionline.bu.edu/poetry/bonnie-parkers-photoshoot">"bonnie parker's photoshoot" (AGNI online)</a>
<a href="prism.jpg">poetry: "this is east euro" (PRISM international) *pushcart nominee!</a>
<a href="https://www.thenormalschool.com/blog/2017/10/9/thanks-for-finally-joining-the-20th-century-since-its-already-over-by-marta-balcewicz">comic: "thanks for finally joining the 20th century since it's already over" (the normal school-online)</a>
<a href="https://catapult.co/stories/millo-my-american-armadillo">non-fic: "millo, my american armadillo" (catapult)</a>
<a href="https://pitheadchapel.com/common-weeds/">fiction: "common weeds" (pithead chapel)</a>
<a href="https://www.barrelhousemag.com/blogall/2017/8/24/le-tigre-amour-by-marta-balcewicz">comic: "le tigre amour" (barrelhouse)</a>
<a href="https://www.minolareview.com/marta-balcewicz">fiction: "women in space" (minola review)</a>
<a href="http://cosmonautsavenue.com/marta-balcewicz-lies-gymnasium/">non-fic: "lies in the gymnasium" (cosmonauts avenue)</a>
<a href="http://puritan-magazine.com/new-tenant/">poetry: "new tenant" (the puritan)</a>
<a href="http://www.hobartpulp.com/web_features/caveat-emptor-baby">comic: "caveat emptor, baby" (hobart)</a>
<a href="http://www.hobartpulp.com/web_features/autocorrect">comic: "autocorrect" (hobart)</a>
reviews and articles, etc.:
<a href="https://blog.pshares.org/bad-people-and-bad-dreams-in-a-door-behind-a-door/">review: "a door behind a door" by yelena moskovich (ploughshares)</a>
<a href="http://https://blog.pshares.org/the-hare-by-melanie-finn/">review: "the hare" by melanie finn (ploughshares)</a>
<a href="http://blog.pshares.org/index.php/many-people-die-like-you-by-lina-wolff/">review: "many people die like you" by lina wolff (ploughshares)</a>
<a href="http://blog.pshares.org/index.php/ha-seong-nans-bluebeards-first-wife/">review: "bluebeard's first wife" by ha seong-nan (ploughshares)</a>
<a href="http://shamelessmag.com/blog/entry/chelsea-martins-caca-dolce-essays-for-a-shitty-era">review: "caca dolce" by chelsea martin (shameless)</a>
<a href="http://shamelessmag.com/issue/summer-2017">review: "difficult women" by roxane gay (shameless-print)</a>
<a href="http://shamelessmag.com/blog/entry/fanfic-talks-back-a-review-of-where-did-you-sleep-last-night-by-lynn-crosbi">review: "where did you sleep last night" by lynn crosbie (shameless)</a>
<a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/travel/destinations/the-majestically-creepy-towns-at-the-heart-of-twinpeaks/article29660457/">photos: twin peaks (globe & mail)</a>
<a href="http://shamelessmag.com/blog/entry/carrie-brownstein-hunger-makes-me-a-modern-girl">review: "hunger makes me a modern girl" by carrie brownstein (shameless)</a>
<a href="http://shamelessmag.com/blog/entry/q-a-with-sabrina-ramnanan">q & a: with author sabrina ramnanan (shameless)</a>
<a href="http://shamelessmag.com/blog/entry/girl-in-a-band-kim-gordon-and-memories-recalled">review: "girl in a band" by kim gordon (shameless)</a>
<a href="gmcovers.jpg">photos: pretty places on/in the globe (globe & mail)</a>
<a href="http://shamelessmag.com/blog/entry/well-worn-martas-favourite-band-t-shirt">profile: my favourite bikini kill t-shirt (shameless)</a>
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