Friday, July 27, 2012

Solitude, Creativity, Opus House

Opus House
A place for Solitude and Creative Work

Opus House is a comfortable adobe home near the old Spanish village of Truchas in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of Northern New Mexico. Sitting at 8300 feet elevation, 45 minutes from Santa Fe on the High Road to Taos, Opus House is offered to selected individuals of all callings and backgrounds as a place of solitude and creative work. It is seen as a place to be for a week or so to concentrate on a chosen creative process.

For those interested in exploring this offering, contact:
Opus House, 1671 State Road 76, P.O. Box 471, Truchas, NM 87578


A number of Fisher King Press authors have spent time at Opus House and Truchas Peaks Place. Patricia Damery and Naomi Ruth Lowinsky wrote the preface, the section introductions, and flowed together the essays that comprised Marked By Fire: Stories of the Jungian Way. Mel Mathews has completed a number of Fisher King Press titles while hiding away at this sacred place.

Saturday, July 07, 2012

The Timekeeper has come to Town

Timekeeper by John Atkinson

Within the first few pages, John Atkinson's Timekeeper had weaved its essence around my heart and refused to let me go. Written in the same spirit as Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees, Timekeeper is a magnificent tale of a young boy who can't read, or at least he hasn't found the means to do so up to this point in his life. Misunderstood by his teachers and elders, and physically beaten into the ground by his father, Johnnyboy runs away from home at the age of fourteen and sets off into the unknown to find himself. What he couldn't find in his own father, the universe provides for him in a multitude of miraculous ways. In spite of all his suffering and adversities, Johnnyboy's spirit remains in tact... better yet, like a boxer taking a relentless barrage of punches, he spits his beating into the ringside pail and comes out dancing like never before into the next rounds/chapters of this magnificent tale of redemption. Readers, Booksellers, Journalists, Reviewers, Critics, and even you Movie Makers, about all I can tell you is, 'Better get ready 'cause the Timekeeper is coming to town!' --Mel Mathews, USA Today

Wednesday, July 04, 2012

Freeing our Authentic Selves

Review by Mel Mathews

Filled with insight and wisdom, Free the Children is most unique and original in its own sense, yet equal in rank to the works of Carlos Castaneda and Don Miguel Ruiz. This beautifully written story is about a love shared between a father and son. Yet, it is not about a father ‘fathering’ a son. Quite the opposite – Boye, with an innocent wisdom that has not been distorted by the conventional impositions of social institutions, teaches, or better yet, ‘boys’ a Father. Bruce Scott reclaims and liberates his own lost innocent self as he and Boye travel the country, meeting up with bizarre people in the most uncanny places, and sharing profound experiences that bring about a shift in awareness and alters their way of seeing and being in the world.

Sunday, July 01, 2012

Who is Malcolm Clay, you ask?

"Malcolm Clay is the story of everyman."

"Malcolm Clay is the story of everyman. He is every man who ventures into life and love. The every man who experiences the vicissitudes of the ecstasy yet fear and pain that life and love may bring. Author, Mel Mathews, brings to light the engaging energies of his novels' protagonist, Malcolm Clay, both in his external happenings and also in the soul making substance of his inner on-going life. He allows us to hear the inner dialogue, to touch the feelings, to view life as if an X-ray vision of a man's soul. In an appealing manner, a crisp and crusty narrative, we, as reader, also envision life and soul."
– Nancy Qualls-Corbett, Jungian Analyst & Author of The Sacred Prostitute

Sweet Alabama Mountain Music

review by Mel Mathews

What a fabulous tale! The weekend was covered with a hefty to-do list, then I opened up Ramey Channell's Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge and everything else fell away. The woods around Moonlight Ridge are filled with magical secrets and possibilities and eight-year-old Lily Claire Nash and her cousin Willie T (both born on the very same day and at the very same time) are full of adventure.