The novel's was released on Bastille Day (July 14) 2010. I made headlines worldwide when I released The French Revolution via Twitter on Bastille Day 2009. You can read about The French Revolution here and more on the Twitter story here.
I'm a novelist first, but also a blogger, essayist, writer, idea man, technologist, PR ninja, and green marketeer. I'm in deep and total love with my adopted home of San Francisco, and I'm a serious San Francisco Giants fan, from way before they won the World Series (which was mind-blowing).
My dad is the best-selling history author and novelist David O. Stewart.
Hey Matt, I love your writing and want more. How come you don't have a blog?
Between a day job and fiction-writing and the rest of the rigamarole, blogging's too much of a time suck. I can generally handle 140 characters just fine, though - check me out over on Twitter. When I do get inspired to birth a full-fledged blog post, you can find me on The Huffington Post.
Who are your influences?
My personal literary gods are Annie Proulx, Kiran Desai, Junot Diaz, and Martin Amis--bold, thrilling, hilarious writers whose language relentlessly sears the soul. The best book I read in 2009 was The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon, which is one of those knock-out crazy inventive masterpieces that significantly reduced my self-esteem. Jonathan Ames is shit-the-bed funny. New Orleans, Mon Amour is a book anybody who's ever loved New Orleans should read. I just battled through Updike's Rabbit Angstrom Tetralogy and am a ridiculously better writer for it. Steve Elliott taught the best writing class I've ever taken.
Got any other fiction I can read?
Check out my short story "Day of the Dead" in San Francisco's own Instant City.
Isn't the whole Twitter thing just a gimmick?
I feared a lot of people might think of it like that, but the feedback I received was thrillingly positive. I learned that people really value trying new things to make literature more accessible, and I really encourage authors, editors and publishers to experiment with new ways to reach readers. It's time to put the publishing industry's formidable imagination toward inventing a smarter technology-based business model that makes life better for readers and makes more money for writers. I've written about this at The Huffington Post, and have spoken about it in front of trade groups and social media conferences. Pisses me off to see publishing make a lot of the same mistakes the music industry did.
What's next?
I'm finishing up my next novel Duct Tape, about a homeless man in search of his imaginary son. Check out my events calendar to identify opportunities to buy me a drink.
Anything I missed? Lemme know
