Matthew Vandrew's Blog

Have you ever forgotten your significant other's birthday? Wedding anniversary? Date your bills were due? I thought so.Have you ever forgotten your story is about to be published?Yup. That's me. My short story has been out for a bloody week and I completely missed it.Real life taking its toll, I guess. Or I'm a moron. Anyway, Along Came Spiders made its way to the Dreamspinner Press anthology, Animal Magnetism. It looks like this: And it's available here as a paperback or here, if you prefer e-books.It's about this:

Good-natured and easygoing, Hedge is the most atypical nurse you could encounter. But when an earthquake hits town, Hedge is out there to help. Somehow, he ends up stuck in a basement with an unconscious arachnologist, a very handsome policeman named Alec, and dozens of dangerous spiders on the loose. And those things BITE.

Happy reading!

I made it! I made it! I became a victim a volunteer of Kris'n'goodbooks Choose your own m/m story challenge - and I survived!

As you know, readers voted for 5 story prompts that I had to include into the story. I decided to put all of them in, plus one suggestion from the discussion after the voting has ended. So it was 21 things I made a story about. Just how good am I? Not to mention I had to put in two nerds who think they are Sam and Dean from Supernatural - I have never ever seen a single...

The time has come. I found myself in some creepy dark dungeon, tied up and tortured by a bunch of extremely perverse sadists...

Ahem.

I mean I volunteered to a big challenge, the greatest of them all, actually. Choose your own M/M story, hosted by an evil mastermind... err... I mean our lovely and awesome and genius Kris. You remember the platypus picture, right? The one where there was no Kris. That was her. I mean, it wasn't her. You know what I mean.

So, what to do? Click on the link above (o...

What can you do with a short story which didn't make it to an anthology? Well, make it a freebie!

Do you know what is worse than your boyfriend meeting your parents? Him meeting all your family including drunk aunt and adolescent cousin. Oh, and your boyfriend is an alien. This can't possibly go well, can it?

Enjoy Strange Carnivorous Flowers From Outer Space.

He just popped in my head from God-knows-where. A plot bunny. Sometimes I can spot them before they make a home in my brain but sometimes they just appear and there they are.

I'm used to them so now I did just what I've been doing for years: I fed him, played with him and watched it growing. Some plot bunnies are weak and won't see their adulthood but this one was strong and intriguing. I was happy to have him because, frankly, MOST of plot bunnies die before they grow up.

But suddenly this one...

When I discovered M/M and gay fiction, I was thrilled. One of the reasons: end of stereotypical gay men as depicted in TV and other books.

After hundreds of read books under my belt I can freely say: There are even more stereotypes in M/M!
I'm not going into ranting about alpha males with their Cromagnon-like behaviour. Just the basics: Plenty of men in M/M are not communicating. They don't talk, they jump to conclusions and act on them. And it's even worse when it comes to sexual arousal - eve...

I swear, I wouldn't do it by myself but Kris made me. She's that way, you know. "Either you do a new blogpost or I'll stop sending you Sean's naughty pics." *sigh* You can't say no to that, can you?

Sooo, this one is for you, Kris.

The Platypus Learns Astrophysics is getting good reviews. Can you imagine how happy I am for that? It got mentioned in every review of Brush of Wings anthology. RJ Scott said she "didn't want this story to end". Jenre called it "a delightful story to read". Tam concl...

There are things that must be said. One of them is: there are really bad books out there. Of course, you knew it. There is nothing wrong with that. I'm afraid their authors have no idea their books are bad.
The only trouble is: they disguise as good books and we buy them in false belief we will enjoy them. We will not but by then it's too late and in case of e-books there is no way we can get our money back and show the author what we think about their creations.
The blurb sounds good and...

"You are a lonely and unhappy soul, Jonas," the angel said sincerely. "And yet there is no evil in you. You are just… annoying."

"Thanks."

"And therefore our Lord took mercy on you and sent me to enlighten your days."

"He sent you to enlighten my days and didn't provide you with a cock? Well, good luck with that," Jonas snorted again.

Micah didn't look offended. "I know you take almost all pleasure in your life from sex. But that's not the way."

"So what are you gonna do?"

The angel took a step clo...

The time has come - my first short story The Platypus Learns Astrophysics is about to be published in Dreamspinner Press' anthology A Brush of Wings. You have no idea how excited I am! My first attempt and it got into the anthology straight (no pun intended) away!

So - what's it all about? The anthology deals with angels and divine messengers of every kind. My angel's name is Micah and he's sent to Earth with especially difficult task: to bring love and joy into the life of Jonas, young but ve...