MattRees.net

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

My historical crime novel about the mysterious end of Caravaggio is out in the UK in a couple of weeks. As a taster for A NAME IN BLOOD, I’m making available a short story “Lazarus’s Brush” that’s also about the great Italian artist. The download is FREE until Sunday. It includes the short story, plus [...]

I was on a book tour in Spain when, on a visit to a Madrid gallery, I fell for Caravaggio’s St. Catherine of Alexandria. Here I tell the story of how that encounter with Catherine drew me into the work of the great Italian artist — and to the mystery of his disappearance. The result [...]

A reading from A Name in Blood, my historical crime novel about the great Italian artist Caravaggio. In this chapter, we’re in Rome, 1605. The new Cardinal Scipione Borghese views Caravaggio’s work alongside the artist’s patron, Cardinal del Monte. The novel is my answer to the mystery of Caravaggio’s death. Though he was the most [...]

I was born in Britain and live in the Middle East. But as a lover of noir crime fiction, I’ve always had a soft spot for Los Angeles (because of Raymond Chandler) and have spent a great deal of time there. A soft spot that’s almost as soft as Los Angeles itself… An outsider’s witty [...]