My brother Tod Goldberg has reviewed DANCING ON THE FLY ASH, a self-published P.O.D. book, in his Las Vegas City Life column:
It’s a sad state of affairs, however, that the one book spawned from a
blog that actually succeeds has gone virtually unnoticed: Dancing On Fly Ash by Matt Bell and Josh Maday.The
differences between Bell and Maday and their blog brethren is they are
actually fiction writers, unlike Cutler, who slept with a lot of
people, and Cox, who is a fine journalist but not a fine fiction writer
(it’s not a trait that is easily shared), and their blog (found at
dancingonflyash.com) is a daily splash of flash creativity: Each day,
in 100 words or less, either Bell or Maday writes a complete short
story. Dancing On Fly Ash collects the best 62 of these entries
and the result is both exciting and frustrating — exciting in that the
best of these short-short-short stories packs the emotional wallop of a
novel and frustrating because several stories beg for more than the
form allows.The stories veer from the dramatic to the poignant to the absurd, the best of which contain all three styles.
Naturally, the authors were thrilled by the review:
This is the first review for our book, so I can’t help but be excited,
especially since it’s mostly positive. It’s so hard to get a
self-published book reviewed in the first place, much less by an author
of Goldberg’s stature. We’re very thankful to him for his
encouragement and support.