Matt Lang

was born in Olean, New York, grew up in Rixford, Pennsylvania, and now lives in Chicago, Illinois. His fiction is "trenchant and well-observed" with a "muscular magical realism" that is "poignant and a little fucked up." His books include Fernweh, McKean County and Other Stories, and 2039.

Most of these stories have been distributed in print by Clawfoot Press, but it has come to my attention that more and more people are reading short stories and novels on Substack, and since I want people to read my short stories and novels, I, too, will put them on Substack, where I hope to find more readers.

Contact Information

2241 South Marshall Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60623

matt@clawfootpress.com

773.678.9543

Dear Mister Met

is a series of letters from a guy with a big heart to a guy with a big head. The letters ask big questions about life, but more than anything they are written with the hopes that Mister Met will tell Mr. Met about them and then Mr. Met will tell Keith Hernandez about them and then Matt Lang and his friends Joe and Pete will be able to meet Keith Hernandez.

Mr. Met

and his partner Mrs. Met are the official mascots of the New York Mets. They are available for appearances at birthday parties, community functions, business engagements and other special events. They are not in any way affiliated with this newsletter.

Mister Met

is a construct that Matt Lang hopes is enough of a work around to avoid any trademark infringements or other legal rigmarole.

Fernweh

This is a sad story about love and longing in America.

This is a funny story about stumbling across America.

This is a falling down barn.

This is what happens in between innings.

This is a picture of America hanging crooked on the wall.

Fernweh is the story of Jackson Hoffman, the phone call he answers, and the road trip he takes with Ana Riviera. A love story, an ode to baseball, a defense of good religion, and a journey through an America that doesn’t quite work, Fernweh is filled with living, breathing characters and pitch-perfect dialogue. At once angry and confident, lost and bewildered, smitten and heartbroken, Jackson’s heart beats through the pages as he fights to make sense of a life he worries is going down the drain.

McKean County and Other Stories

McKean County, Pennsylvania is located in the Allegheny Mountain, three hundred miles north of Pittsburgh, ninety miles south of Buffalo, New York, and twenty-five years behind anywhere else. Matt Lang grew up there and moved away. He lives in Chicago now.

So begins the title story in this startling debut collection of short-stories. In “Key West”, “McKean County”, and “Manila, Mindoro, Manila”, Matt Lang is a man a notch or two out of place. “384 Miles to Omaha” is an unflinching look at the consequences of a father who thinks he has no choice. “Back to Ur” is a fable of a father who knows he has a choice, but is conflicted about what to choose. “A Hot Dog Love Story” is, well, a love story. With a hot dog in it.

Full of equal parts humor and heartbreak, McKean County and Other Stories will keep you off balance even as it pulls you deeper.

So…Who Is Robby Drinkwalter?

Robby Drinkwalter has no backstory but this: In high school, I signed Robby Drinkwalter up for most every sport and club. At the beginning of the first football practice, for example, the coach would run down the list of names. “When I call your name, say ‘here,’” he’d say. “Drinkwalter, Robby.” I’d snicker, and my friends who knew would snicker, and the coach would wonder why we were snickering but he’d call out, “Drinkwalter, Robby,” again, and we’d flat-out laugh and coach wouldn’t like that one bit so he’d make us run laps or do extra leg lifts or something, but it was worth it for the laughs and I guess it built character.