Category Archives: Articles and Reviews

If you go to breenibooks.com a review of Stricken by me is available for 10 December. I have decided not to do reviewing as it takes away from my own writing, my own life, if it be said. Time is very precious to me. However, if something really good is proffered and it is no more than 250 pages I will review it. In any case the aforesaid review gives you a sample of how I go about reviewing. (Contact me if you have a book of interest.) The book was about loss in all its varieties and if anything, by the time we all come to die, we have become quasi-experts on death and dying. 1960, 1999 are indelible milestones in my own experience with loss of the most grotesque kind, one by cancer, the other through a horrific car crash. Of course, closure is for those Americans who suck on the nipple of MYSpace, YouTube, and Twitter. Closure, my ass. Loss is an open-ended ache until you die yourself.

For the past year I have been involved in costly litigation, trying to sell a house in this moribund market, unintended construction costs to repair an electrical problem of some magnitude in the house, the usual harassing shit of living life, the grotesqueries of neighbors who are trailer trash and all the rest while I try to use this mind of mine to find a clear, well-lighted place to attain some respite, some space to respire freely so that I can manage all this looming, impending and nagging crud!  I work hard on falling back on those values and memories that fortify me for adversity and often it works but it is draining and often tiresome to be so defended in order to walk ahead. I compare my worries and anxieties, often really difficult ones, to the image of Rochelle lying dead on a gurney. It is this flashback remembrance that holds me steady as I face human dreck, folly and the inanimate world.

Within this passive-aggressive personality is embedded a high-strung, anxious person who uses control to defend against the pressures of everyday life. Control doesn’t work, for it is a temporary measure, like a dam against Katrina. (Re: Ordinary People. . . “Control is a bitch.”) Inevitability destroys control. The secondary defense, I imagine-think-believe, is to fight back, more in self-defense than out opf character-driven intention. The inner, quaking fear which I have never experienced, but a fear nevertheless, is that I may shatter, but shatter I do not during impossible moments of stress, such as losing one’s mother, losing one’s wife. I do not will this resiliency; it simply exudes, like a rich sweat after a workout. I am stronger than I think, and I am weaker than I think, might say it all.

Like lint in a dryer’s filter, we gather debris as we course through life. Divorces, deaths, major mistakes and minor catastrophes, so by the time we are my age or nearing our journey’s end, we can turn back and see this human comet trail of absolute junk. And then it is over. As I ponder this aimless wool-gathering, I wonder if i can see what it is as opposed to find meaning in it. I’d rather see than understand. When I have seen I have grown or deconditioned myself. At times meaning is a slugfest while seeing is to spin a Venetian glass. Adieu.

Sabrina Williams has reviewed both of my books at Breenibooks, http://breenibooks.blogspot.com/.  Her reviews ( see them both at her site)  went far beyond what a writer might expect, especially her review of The i Tetralogy. So I responded very recently to her notice about POD reviewers and her open and diverse thinking about publishing on demand in general. Only today I had a blogger in her profile say that she did not accept self-published books. I feel that is narrow-minded, to say the least. Some bloggers, many? few? who knows, are inexpert in writing and in how to write a review, but for some odd reason here on the web they express literary airs. The aforementioned blogger also requested hardback review copies. Sense the latent meaning to that demand.

One thing led to another and Sabrina Williams has announced that a group of POP reviewers (see her site and announcements) are available for authors to submit their works. Some of the sites and individuals on that list are reputable if not knowledgeable about the field. As a POD author I am now one of her reviewers.

I urge you to read the list of reviewers, seek out their sites, review their efforts to decide if there is compatibility. In this light, read my 2 July blog in which I announced that I would review books, POD or not POD. Over the years I reviewed books for psychology journals as well as ezines. In that announcement I gave the “flavors” I like to review in literature. I also set out parameters. On this site are two queries for your perusaI. I use them to have my books reviewed or looked at by publishers. I prefer that the author send me a query with all the background data about the book as well as a statement of what the book is about. The query itself is a measure of an author’s ability to get to the point. It tells me if I am dealing with someone, quite frankly, who is trying to be serious about his or her craft. It is not a hazing process. It says much about the author. On the basis of that, I will request to see your book or kindly state it is not for me.

I will not attack you as a person — I have had that unpleasant experience by a demented blogger. I feel your ideas and how you express them or not is fair game. I am not afraid of dissenting with you or criticizing your ideas, or relishing how well you craft your work, or how insightful you are. You as a person will not be handled roughly, mark my words, but your content, whatever, is subject to my thought processes. That is why a query helps me assess what kind of book is being presented to me. Before you send off your book to a pod reviewer scan and study his or her site, your market for your work.

Finally, I do not enter “challenges” (see the previous blog) or hurry through a book so that I can impress other bloggers with how intelligent I am. You will have a professional writer reading your book who happens to have a blog. I will also bring to it my years as an English teacher and psychotherapist. I am serious but not somber about life. Send me your best effort and if you think it is fluff pass me by…Don’t worry, I only sound tough.

Kind Regards,

Matt