Based on True Stories

by Matt Potter

Matt Potter’s writing possesses a delicate snark, an incisive wit that lifts even the commonplace into unique memorability. The characters have the makings of great fictional they’re singular and quirky, but at the same time possessed of an indisputable sense of reality. These people exist, they live and breathe, and we the readers, recognize in them our friends, our family. And ourselves. ~ Guilie Castillo Oriard, author of 'The Miracle of Small Things' The small fictions in 'Based on True Stories' will not lull you – they will piss you off or, at the least, move you to indignation or tears or laughter. Maybe all three. These gems provoke, like the tip of a chef’s knife pricking skin, and just as the words get uncomfortable, the story delivers the bit of redemption that reveals the humanity of his characters – and of us all. These stories are real, raw, and honest. The reading doesn’t get much better than that. ~ Linda Simoni-Wastila, Senior Fiction Editor at 'JMWW'

262 pages, Paperback

Published October 28, 2014

About the author

Matt Potter is a journalist, editor and broadcaster. He has reported for BBC Radio from Eastern Europe, Afghanistan and Southeast Asia, and co-presented Radio 1's award-winning global travel shows. As a journalist, his nose for the unusual has seen his writing appear in places as diverse as the Daily Telegraph, Golf Monthly, Esquire, Sunday Telegraph, Jack, Maxim, the Irish Examiner and Q, and his stories on cocaine trafficking in Latin America have been published in Russian, Spanish and English. As a journalist in Belgrade, he broke the story of the NATO 'spy' giving away secrets to Serb forces on the web. He speaks a handful of languages but attempts to speak at least twenty more. Matt is 39 and lives in London.

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Potter has a distinctive way of telling a story in a short space and I ended up enjoying it a great deal. Witty, funny, engaging, and often moving, there's some great stuff in here. He may say that he didn't spend as much time as usual on the "The World According to Trudy Polaris" ones, but those are personal favorites, though I had a good time reading all of them. I certainly hope there's less truth in these than the title jokingly (I think) suggests, but they have a feeling of realness to them that's independent of any kind of fact. Good stories.