Matt Burgess' office in his Uptown apartment is more like a closet.
"It's me, the kitty litter and an Ikea chair," he says.
He enters each morning by 9 and begins writing in a black-and-white Meade composition book. He scribbles the next draft on a yellow legal pad. Then types it up on his computer, prints it out, rips it apart and does it again. There is no music or TV. Just silence.
Sometimes Petunia, his fiancée's large cat, jumps on his lap.
"When the cat squats on the notebook," Burgess says, "it's a pretty good indication that I'm not writing well."
Based on the success of his first novel, Burgess is writing plenty well. A transplant from Queens, N.Y., Burgess is a finalist for a 2011 Minnesota Book Award. Winners will be named April 16.
His weekend-in-the-life tale of a small-time, fretting 19-year-old drug dealer -- "Dogfight, a Love Story" -- landed this rave from the New York Times book section: "With an acute ear for dialogue and the poetry of the street, Burgess gives us the pizzerias and bodegas, playgrounds and schoolyards, barbershops and bowling alleys of his home turf. His is a cliché-free depiction of gritty urban reality."
So what's he doing in Minnesota? Long story. His girlfriend, Georgia Banks, is a social worker at Regions Hospital in St. Paul. She considered applying to the U for her master's, but never did. And Minnesota was the only place that accepted Burgess in its master of fine arts program.
