About

Matthew Ward

Matthew was born in Syracuse, NY, where he spent most of his childhood. Throughout high school, he took a strong interest in music. He self-taught himself at least nine different instruments and composed pieces for his high school band to perform.

In college, he developed a love for writing and literature. He completed a draft of a novel, numerous essays, and maintained between one and three blogs.

He has been a blogger for over ten years and a full-time writer for five years with more than a dozen novels published under multiple pseudonyms.

You can read his off-topic work on Medium. He is a top writer in the Reading, Books, Science, Education, and Fiction categories and an editor for the publication Mental Health and Addictions Community. He regularly contributes to the publications The Startup, The Writing Cooperative, Age of Awareness, and Cantor’s Paradise.

He currently lives in Connecticut, where he continues to write about his interests and runs Bear Hill Piano Services, a piano tuning and repair company servicing NE CT.

About the Site

This site contains selected articles, analyses, musings, and notes from my past decade of working on my craft.

You’ll see my highs and lows. You’ll find my struggles with figuring out what it means to be a good writer and how to improve.

The advice ranges from the practical to deeply philosophical discussions on validity in interpretation and progress in art.

Treat these articles as you would criticism in a writing workshop. The overanalysis and oftentimes harsh words are merely tools for learning and thinking about writing.

If you’ve ever been in a writing workshop, then you’ll know that heaps of criticism land on stories and writing that would otherwise be published, possibly to great acclaim.

I hope you find it useful. Dig in. With hundreds of articles on the site, you probably won’t find the end anytime soon.

The full Table of Contents will guide you through the site.

My Books

Specter of the Spheres

specter of the spheres

The world ends each blood moon.

But a faction of priestesses sacrifice themselves to keep it going. What happens when Aceline wants more for her life and decides not to do it?

Wallace has chased his dream of becoming a poet for a lifetime. It leads him toward a mysterious aurora.

Robert just wanted to connect with other humans in a world dictated by screens, algorithms, and addiction.

These three become linked across worlds, and each must uphold their end of a quest to prevent catastrophe at the hands of a tyrant in a land full of necromancy.

This new work of slipstream fantasy will be loved by fans of Dan Simmons, Scarlett Thomas, and Clive Barker.

Talamir

talamir

Something is watching all of Talamir…

And it’s not a person.

Would you feel trapped if you lived in a thirty-mile-wide, inescapable crater?

What if a creature flowed underground, expanding, and continually draining the life from you?

The people of Talamir have lived this way for two thousand years, and no one knows it.

But Drystn has the Talent. He can perform magic by moving spior between focal points. The government drafts him into a secret group for this impossible fight.

The magic system that created the world may end up destroying it.

If you love other world fantasy and thrilling adventures, you’ll love Talamir.

Sifting Out the Hearts of Men

sifting out the hearts of men

It’s the fastest-growing religion in the world.

Do you know how it started?

The setting is idyllic Moreau Lake in upstate New York, and Peter is dying. An angel appears to him.

Now he has to deliver a message to the world before it’s too late.

Can he discern reality from hallucination as he accidentally starts a new religion?

If you like Wild Wild Country and Going Clear you’ll love Sifting Out the Hearts of Men.