Author Archives: Robert Nagle

Profile & Review of Jack Matthews’ new novel “Gambler’s Nephew”

Posted on August 7, 2011 by Robert Nagle

Literary reporter and reviewer Jim Phillips does a nice writeup about Gambler’s Nephew for the Athens News. Half the pleasure in the book comes from its resemblance to a huge, shuffling, shaggy-dog story. Every time a new character comes on … Continue reading →

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A Worker’s Writebook: How Language Creates Stories by Jack Matthews

Posted on August 1, 2011 by Robert Nagle

Description of Book Since the early 1990s, Jack Matthews has distributed a photocopied version  of this 75,000 word writing guide to students in his fiction writing classes at Ohio University.  This guide offers insight about how successful writers mold raw  … Continue reading →

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New Jack Matthews bookstore

Posted on June 13, 2011 by Robert Nagle

The daughter of Jack Matthews has opened an online bookstore. If you remember, Jack Matthews once owned a literary saloon to keep his latest literary finds. In the 2009 interview Matthews mentioned selling several thousand of his books to a … Continue reading →

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Free Mp3: Miette reads a Jack Matthews story

Posted on January 7, 2011 by Robert Nagle

Miette’s Bedtime Podcast is a distinguished podcast known for featuring classic and contemporary short stories by great & overlooked writers. Recently she did a reading of the great story A Woman of Properties which comes from the Crazy Woman short … Continue reading →

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Remembering Jack Matthews as a Writing Teacher: Share Your Memories

Posted on December 14, 2010 by Robert Nagle

Ex-students share memories of Ohio author and writing teacher, Jack Matthews. Continue reading →

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Jack Matthews on the memoir of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Son

Posted on August 29, 2010 by Robert Nagle

Jack Matthews has a new essay appearing in August 15 Chronicle Review: It is no surprise to literary scholars that Henry David Thoreau was soaked in Emerson’s thinking, but Julian tells us that even the younger man’s handwriting was like … Continue reading →

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Visiting Jack Matthews (Photo Essay)

Posted on August 29, 2010 by Robert Nagle

Last week I had the opportunity to visit Jack Matthews in Athens, Ohio. Thrilling! Details of the visit will appear occasionally on this blog. For now here are some photos which I took during my visit. This is Jack Matthews … Continue reading →

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Jack Matthews: On choosing the right name for a story character

Posted on August 29, 2010 by Robert Nagle

(Here is a brief excerpt from  WORKER’s WRITEBOOK, an unpublished notebook  about the art of writing fiction  which Jack Matthews prepared for  his  Ohio U. creative writing students in the 1990s). An ebook version of this work will be available … Continue reading →

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2009 Interview with Jack Matthews

Posted on August 27, 2010 by Robert Nagle

2009 Interview with Ohio fiction writer Jack Matthews (1925-2013). By Robert Nagle Continue reading →

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Jack Matthews: An Author which the Internet Forgot

Posted on August 26, 2010 by Robert Nagle

My introduction to short story writer Jack Matthews could not be more accidental. Between 2007 and 2008, I had been downloading and listening to a series of author interviews conducted by Don Swaim during the 1970s and 80s. Don Swaim … Continue reading →

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