For several decades Jack Matthews distributed a photocopied version of this guide to students in his fiction writing classes at Ohio University. A Worker's Writebook offers insight about how successful writers mold raw experiences into a story and how language helps you to do that. It offers good examples and practical advice for getting a story idea off the ground; it analyzes several stories (including one of Matthews' own) and offers paradigms for understanding how stories work. Erudite...

"As a big fan of Civil War Era history, I LOVED this collection of stories. It doesn't show the battle part of the war, but rather, the non-battle portion, where the soldiers mingle with each other and the happenings that would go on in the encampments. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who loves history, of any kind!""mike1990", Reviewer on Librarything.com"Mr. Matthews is a master of prose conversation and deadpan charm. He is ironic, cool, and shrewd, and he wri...

Stories about messy emotions, troubled families and damaged personalities. This 11th story collection contains 24 stories by Jack Matthews (1925-2013) making it the author's largest. Matthews picked BOXES OF TIME as the title for this collection because each story reveals the drama of worlds long since gone but whose dreams and fears and anxieties still resonate today.Over his lifetime Jack Matthews wrote over 200 stories, many of which were published in literary journals. Although...

As fall descends and winter approaches the small northern New Mexico town of Ojo Verde, people tend to bookshops, wait tables, and take care of livestock, while Tulona Puebloans prepare for the Still Time of their calendar. Beneath quiet rhythms, however, crimes occur. The Franklin Deerfield Museum has been robbed of a prehistoric medicine bundle associated with the extinct Hanging Shell Pueblo. A Navajo ceremonial mask is also missing. Richard Tafoya, a Tulona tribal policeman, and Janet ...

Did Edgar Allen Poe fake his death? That's what a Baltimore doctor needs to figure out in the title tale for this 11th story collection by Jack Matthews. As one critic wrote, "Matthews stories are like friends from small towns: They are honest, warm, occasionally lyrical and as strange and idiosyncratic as the rest of us."Characters face all kinds of improbable situations in this collection. A US army battalion finds itself locked in an absurd stalemate with German troops at the en...

"Matthews stories are like friends from small towns: They are honest, warm, occasionally lyrical and as strange and idiosyncratic as the rest of us."Arthur Sabatini (Philadelphia Inquirer)During the last decade of his life, author Jack Matthews wrote a series of 1-2 page prose pieces (which he dubbed "Abruptions" or "very short stories that end abruptly").Matthews had already published over 20 books of fiction with an astonishing variety of characters and plots. This...

This slender 150 page coming-of-age novella was first published in 1967 and reprinted several times. Now, in celebration of its 50th anniversary, it is available as an ebook. TIME MAGAZINE described it as a "gentle first novel told with a fine ear for adolescent patois," and National Book Award winning poet William Stafford called it one of the most neglected works of the 20th century. Southern novelist Eudora Welty said about the book: "I like it, and warmly admire his sturdy subject and ...

Tired of bloated diet plans, hangry mornings, and workout programs that shred your time but not your waistline? Fast Like a Boy hands you a simple, science-backed playbook built for male biology - no calorie spreadsheets, no starvation, no monk-mode misery.Inside this fast no-BS audiobook you’ll discover:• The 24-Hour Testosterone Clock – Why men’s hormones peak and crash on a daily rhythm, and how a noon-to-8 p.m. feast window supercharges muscle while mel...

North of Taos, New Mexico, an unidentified murder victim wearing a belt with a turquoise buckle of rare dendrite quality is discovered on the edge of the Tulona Reservation. Tribal policeman Richard Tafoya takes charge of the investigation to determine the identity and killer. Tafoya meets Forest Service biology specialist Janet Rael as he follows leads from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the Navajo Reservation in the west. Within a social interplay of Puebloan, Hispano, and Anglo cultu...

In this provocative & immensely irritating comic play, the Sphinx from ancient Greece is interviewed in modern times as though she were a celebrity pop star. The problem is she never answers any questions — never directly anyway. Instead she prefers just dishing the dirt on everybody. ON HOMER: “I never was exactly sure which one Homer was. I’m positive he wasn’t the blind one, though; that was just a silly story they started telling a few centuries later”. ON OEDIPUS: “Eddie ...

In this provocative & immensely irritating comic play, the Sphinx from ancient Greece is interviewed in modern times as though she were a celebrity pop star. The problem is, she never answers any questions -- never directly anyway. Instead she prefers just dishing the dirt on everybody. ON HOMER: "I never was exactly sure which one Homer was. I'm positive he wasn't the blind one, though; that was just a silly story they started telling a few centuries later". ON OEDIPUS: "Eddie was terribl...

'Gripping . . . packed with fascinating detail' – Financial Times‘Indispensable – brilliantly grounded in first-hand experience. Compelling’ – Rory Stewart, author of Politics on the Edge‘Anyone interested in geopolitics should read it’ – Anne Applebaum, author of Autocracy, IncHow do states actually exercise power in an age of chaos?From top defense analyst Dr Jack...