Matt Rees's Page

Novelists aren’t journalists. Research for a novel isn’t the same as researching a journalistic article.

I’d have thought that was too obvious to need stating. But then I became a published novelist, and I realized that people thought the two things were rather the same.

I was a journalist for almost 20 years before my first novel was published. THE COLLABORATOR OF BETHLEHEM is a crime novel set in Bethlehem during the intifada, and I’d spent over a decade covering the Palestinians by the time… Continue

Michael Anthony is the author of MASS CASUALTIES: A Young Medic’s True Story of Death, Deception and Dishonor in Iraq (Adams Media, October 2009). His book is drawn from his personal journals during the first year he spent serving in Iraq. You can read my interview with him… Continue

Worn out has-been or drama queen? Interpretations of the Palestinian president's threat to quit vary greatly. By Matt Beynon Rees - GlobalPost

JERUSALEM — Sometimes a quitter really does quit for good.

The Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, announced last week that he wouldn’t run for re-election in the proposed Janua… Continue

When foreign correspondents come to Jerusalem they often ask me for advice on stories and places from which to witness the various conflicts that play out in this city. Next time, I’m going to buy them a ticket to the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo.

I go there every Saturday afternoon with my two-year-old son. But perhaps because our favorite animals (the cute little prairie dogs) have hibernated, I noticed that the zoo is a microcosm of all the things I covered here in a decade and a half as a journal… Continue

Huffington Post book blogger Jason Pinter has a column about "The State of the Crime Novel." It's a fairly Yankocentric appraisal of current crime writing by a series of top US reviewers. It includes this from veteran mystery columnist Oline H. Cogdill: "One of the main missions of crime novels is to paint a timely portrait of the issues in our times. This doesn't mean these novels have to hit you ov… Continue