The Scavenger Hunt Novel Is Underway

I had a reading last Thursday and Electric Literature was kind enough to write it up: "Roth has a charm about him that entices you, no matter your literary proclivities." They also gave me an award for Best Writerly Facial Expressions that I didn't even know what I was up for.



I read my story "The Ambush" (which was originally titled "Bombs over Breakfast," shout-out to my fave influencers) (I think I'm only shouting-out OutKast because Rabbi Fink did last week). It's a short story, and it features Jupiter from Losers, and it's also chapter 4 of this scavenger-hunt novel that I wrote.

Um. Let me explain. Last year, I wrote this book Enemies that I really liked, and my agent sort of didn't. It was conveniently already sliced into chapters, and so I've been publishing them as short stories. This marks the 5th (I think?) piece that's been published:

1. Girl Jesus on the Inbound Train (in Truth & Dare)
2. Are You Being Served? (in Apiary) (and it's online!)
3. xxxxxx
4. The Ambush (Let me reiterate: in Cornered)
5. Jupiter Glazer Meets His Maker (in Mimaamakim)

Chapter 3 is going to be published, but it's on hiatus right now, and I probably shouldn't say where yet? But I think you'll like it.

And then there's a second half. I'll try to figure out how to get that to you guys, soon.

Book Deal, Big Deal, Amen

Update: go here to get the actual book!

The deal for my new book, My First Kafka: Runaways, Rodents, and Giant Bugs, was listed in Publisher's Weekly this week! It's still about a zillion years away from being published (it's a picture book, and we don't even have an artist yet), but I'm excited. I'll let you know when I know anything -- although I don't really know anything at all, yet.

Except that the book is written. I do know that. And I was reading it at 5:00 this morning and getting all sorts of chills, the good kind and the kind that you get when something inhuman is watching you from a dark corner of the room, and I think you'll like it.

Here's the sale notice:

Children's: Picture book
Matthue Roth's MY FIRST KAFKA: RUNAWAYS, RODENTS, AND GIANT BUGS, a charming and delightful - or, at least, an oppressive and unsightly - introduction for precocious children, Goths, and literary nerds, to Robert McGuire at One Peace Books, by Marissa Walsh at FinePrint Literary Management (World).