About Matthew Baker
Matthew Baker is the author of the graphic novel The Sentence, the story collections Why Visit America and Hybrid Creatures, and the children’s novel Key Of X. Stories have appeared in publications such as New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, American Short Fiction, One Story,Electric Literature, and Best American Science Fiction And Fantasy. Digital experiments include the temporal fiction “Ephemeral,” the interlinked novel Untold, the randomized novel Verses, the intentionally posthumous Afterthought, and the collaborative tete-a-tete Terminal, along with the cyber zine Code Lit. Born in the Great Lakes region of the United States, the author currently lives in Hong Kong.
A Profile of the Author
Notes on “Stricken”
I began writing “Stricken” on January 19 2021. Had been in quarantine for almost a year in an apartment in Manhattan. Writing nonstop. Day and night. Writing nonstop. Night and day. Like all of my stories, “Stricken” began as a concept. A narrator who would strikethrough words and phrases and clauses, strikethrough entire sentences, strikethrough entire paragraphs, in an attempt to negate negative thoughts. I finished the story on March 31 2021. Got vaccinated. Walked to the park in the rain. To be honest, I hadn’t expected to survive.
Music, Food, Booze, Tattoos, Kittens, etc.
I still have zero tattoos. I still have zero kittens. So what’s new in my life that maybe you’d want to know. About a year ago, May 5 2023, I decided that if I actually cared about the climate crisis then from now on I should do whatever was necessary to power my computer with green energy. I dropped half a grand on some solar gear. My starter kit was a Goal Zero Nomad 50 panel and a Goal Zero Sherpa 100AC battery. With those my writing is now 100% solar-powered. These words you’re reading now were 100% solar-powered. “Stricken,” unfortunately, was powered by fossil fuels, although all of the stories from my fossil-fuel era have since been offset by a giant sequoia in the Great Reserve.
