MattRees.net

I talk about the real events in Gaza that are the basis for my second Palestinian crime novel A GRAVE IN GAZA (UK title: THE SALADIN MURDERS.) Over a decade reporting on Gaza, I accumulated stories that few other reporters noticed. In this novel, Palestinian sleuth Omar Yussef faces the corruption of senior Palestinian security [...]

I use yoga and meditation to prepare myself for the mental and physical challenge of writing. I introduce this podcast by talking about the importance of yoga and how it helps to open a writer’s creativity, and to prevent fatigue from sitting for long periods. I describe several stretching techniques you can do throughout your [...]

My award-winning first novel was THE COLLABORATOR OF BETHLEHEM (UK title: THE BETHLEHEM MURDERS). Set against the backdrop of the Palestinian intifada, it tells the story of schoolteacher Omar Yussef, who is forced to take on the violence of his hometown to save a former pupil. In this podcast, I lay out how I came [...]

With experienced Mideast correspondent Matthew Kalman I discuss and read from our ebook PSYCHOBIBI: Who is Israel’s Prime Minister and Why Does He Want to Fail? Benjamin Netanyahu, the man often portrayed as an extremist, is really just locked in a deep psychological battle with the ghosts of his tough father and golden brother. The [...]

This podcast is about my new alternative news project DeltaFourth. I read from THE MURDER OF YASSER ARAFAT, the first explosive ebook from DeltaFourth. The ebook reveals how Yasser Arafat was murdered by people in his inner circle. It’s the prototype for DeltaFourth’s forthcoming series of long-form journalistic ebooks — stunning breaking news written in [...]

A short story set in Amman, Jordan, during the Arab Spring. A Western journalist, befriends a wealthy sweet-seller named Said. He grows close to him and his lover, a poor taxi driver, as he covers the anti-government riots of the Arab Spring. He observes the growing conflict between the two men until its shocking conclusion. [...]

As an introduction to my Caravaggio novel A NAME IN BLOOD, here’s a short story about an incident in the artist’s life that was very striking to me, but which didn’t fit with the narrative of the novel. In “Lazarus’s Brush” Caravaggio flees the men who seek to kill him and arrives in Sicily. He’s [...]

Matt interviews Matthew Kalman, editor of The Jerusalem Report. The Report is a highly reputed magazine covering the Middle East and the Jewish world. It gained a wide readership during the 1990s, but in recent years has been a little, ahem, dull (more on that from the new editor himself). An experienced British journalist, Kalman [...]

Jasmine Schwartz is the hottest new voice in crime fiction. Her novels “Farbissen: Melissa Morris and the Meaning of Money” and “Fakakt: Melissa Morris and the Meaning of Sex” are witty and daring, sneaking weighty subjects like sex-trafficking and drugs into storylines that at first seem breezy. In this interview, Jasmine talks in her inimitable [...]

Describes the challenges of researching and writing about the great Italian artist Caravaggio for my novel A NAME IN BLOOD. I deliberately took my research too far, not only learning to fence with a rapier and to paint with oils, but dying my beard and cutting my hair in Caravaggio’s style and using New Age [...]