Matthew Wamser, New Settings and New Beginnings

Matthew Wamser revels in the space he’s been given as a Fine Arts Work Center writing fellow. Working in a first-floor apartment with exposed wood timbers, he feels the presence of the past: a plaque on the door notes that the space was used by artists Robert Motherwell and Helen Frankenthaler in the 1960s.

The studio is perfect for writing historical fiction — what Wamser had been doing since he was a graduate student at the University of Michigan. In one of his short stories, he mixes humor and tragedy in a narrative about a beekeeping monk in Milan who is struck by a meteorite. Much of his fiction is set in the 17th century. “It was this extraordinary time of social change, a time when many of the foundations of the modern world were laid,” says Wamser.

Since he arrived in Provincetown, the setting of Wamser’s stories has shifted along with the genre he’s working in. Walls of Bone, Walls of Meat, the working title of his in-progress horror novel, is set in an environment of what he calls “bureaucratic violence”: a deceptively bland, fluorescent-lit office filled with cubicles. The setting becomes increasingly sinister as the novel progresses.