Matthew Bean

Benevolent god to some shrimps. Writer in the Iodine State.
Read “Like Paralda” in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 52.

[Matthew Bean @mbean_docx]

I’m proud to announce that my short story “Like Paralda” has been published in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet no. 52. I’m honored to be included among so many remarkable LCRW contributors.
Available July 7, 2026. Link in bio.

[Matthew Bean @mbean_docx]

From "Ballet Mécanique" by Fernand Léger, 1924

#experimentalfilm #weirdart #avantgardefilm

[Matthew Bean @mbean_docx]

Images from Allan Johnson’s “Magic by Return of Post” in The Public Domain Review. #OccultHistory #WeirdFiction #SpeculativeFiction

[Matthew Bean @mbean_docx]

This is exactly the sort of history I love to explore in my writing. What if pulp occultism was real and ubiquitous?

So far, all the answers I’ve cobbled together point toward something as bleak and beautiful as our own world, if weirder and worse.

[Matthew Bean @mbean_docx]

The distance between a reality with real gods and one in which we’ve invented them is fascinatingly small. We seem to be achieving dystopia just fine without mail-order magic.

[Matthew Bean @mbean_docx]

Fought a gang of pill bugs for a key under the moldering hemp doormat and he was in.

[Matthew Bean @mbean_docx]

They pray for food.

🙏
🦐
🐠

#shrimpgod
#AquariumHobby
#Fishkeeping
#ShrimpTank

[Matthew Bean @mbean_docx]

MONSTRILIO by @samanito

A mother grows something to love from her son's lung--a monster, a person, a monster. Strange, hopeful, heartbreaking. A story of loving on purpose. Find a cozy spot to hang from your arm tail, unhinge your novel-jaw, and devour this book. #BookReview

[Matthew Bean @mbean_docx]

Haunted Chest of Drawers
Marcelin (Ed.): "La Vie Parisienne" (1863)

[Matthew Bean @mbean_docx]

Did I find the spirit of Christmas already?

It's an unopened, 100% juice, apple Capri Sun left on the desk of an empty English building classroom during finals week, so I'm not totally sure.

I'll keep searching.

[Matthew Bean @mbean_docx]

This is the year I discover the spirit of Christmas.

After that, I'm not sure. I guess, learn and incorporate its true name into a pentacle written on virgin parchment, summon it, bind it within a magic circle of salt, then bend it to my mortal will? We'll see if there's time.

[Matthew Bean @mbean_docx]

"I simply want ice cream and to be alive until am dead."

#amreading Near Flesh, by Katherine Dunn.
#readingcommunity #WritingCommunity

[Matthew Bean @mbean_docx]

"I think what I want is to live without knowing or feeling it."

#amreading Antisocieties, by @MichaelTCisco
#readingcommunity #WritingCommunity

[Matthew Bean @mbean_docx]

"So, how was your life? What did you do?"
- my toddler

[Matthew Bean @mbean_docx]

Now that he had recognized himself as a dead man it became important to stay alive as long as possible.
#amreading 1984, by George Orwell #readingcommunity #writingcommunity

[Matthew Bean @mbean_docx]

Her mother would look at her with tender love, and say: "My girl always wakes up with a smile! and Margaret would smile the best way she could, to fulfill her mother's prophecy.
#amreading POOR DEER by Claire Oshetsky
#readingcommunity #WritingCommmunity

[Matthew Bean @mbean_docx]

The girl woke up feeling entirely at ease. She knew from habit that her mother would soon come into her room to open the curtains and let the morning in.

[Matthew Bean @mbean_docx]

Add to list of things you have to say to your child: "Stop licking your calculator!" #parentinghacks

[Matthew Bean @mbean_docx]

I call it "relief", though it was only the relief that a snap brings to a strain or the burst of a thunderstorm to a day of suffocation.

#amreading THE TURN OF THE SCREW, by Henry James
#readingcommunity #writingcommunity #WeirdFiction

[Matthew Bean @mbean_docx]

Would exasperation, however, if relief had longer been postponed, finally have betrayed me? It little matters, for relief arrived.