The Curse of the Matsumoto Cherrywood by Matthew Crosby… out now!
Hi, Matt here. Thanks for visiting! I have some bits and bobs on what I’ve been writing, research I’m doing or other author’s I’ve been reading. I started this site in October 2021 when we of Melbourne were all still cloistered away catching up on home chores, conference calls and pet projects. Looking forward to a dialogue… drop me a line! 😀
Here’s the preface to the trilogy of The Curse of the Matsumoto Cherrywood… Out now!
The only way to tell a story is onwards as the saying goes, but how can that be when all things come from the past? Begin with a departure; as usual a woodblock-carver leaves his wife early in the morning with a fond farewell by the portico; no… that’s just a cheerful bloom finding early spring sun–the roots lie beneath. Like those rhizomes that spread from the source… quietly, assuredly, taking advantage of good conditions when they come, patient if they don’t… from a distant past these roots grow; they creep under the unsuspecting carver, Mr Toriyama. He was chosen for just that sometimes his father went fishing with a man, his friend the warden of a castle. It’s a simple association on which the rootstock of a wandering story feeds. Thus it finds the block-cutter’s poor collaborator the young artist Akuma Takabata and unfortunate Momo his love. Centuries later Detective Martin, his doomed wife and though I name myself so, his faithful partner Detective Soranno are inveigled. Detective Kiko Honda shall be named Martin’s counterpart in Japan for now… as storytelling demands some things be allowed to unfold. Just for the supremacy, without pause or remorse, this narcissistic invader dwells in the corners of reflections and sucks on those who gaze at themselves over-long. In the end all are endangered by this creeper for such is the vigour of malicious intent. Across counties and countries, down through time, underground, this intention spreads, releases its seed to the air. So the curse whispers through the waving needles of ancient pines, the psithurism propagates things better never planted, but once sprouted best weeded. Bearing witness carries the point of a story, and the reporter notes past ills for present thrift. So this curse, of times long gone, of now, must be set down with indelible ink and read out loud… If there is any hope, it is in the record; for evil prefers silence and withers in the telling.
Blogs on the writing of The Curse of the Matsumoto Cherrywood
浮世絵 ukiyo-e in The Curse of the Matsumoto Cherrywood
‘The Curse of the Matsumoto Cherrywood’ is a story with ukiyoe (Japanese woodblock prints) at its heart. The Floating World prints are often billed as a representation of ‘real’ life, but that version of reality was mediated by the explosion of popular culture that flowed from the end of protracted civil war, new systems of administration and…
Dreaming up The Curse of the Matsumoto Cherrywood
Though at times I’ve tried not to, I write stories with a moral compass. Stories with obsessive characters, with desires and wicked or random complications, but above all, my stories start with a germ…in the sense that all threads unwind from a single idea.
Some other places to meet…
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Surrogate, a film written by Beth King, directed by David Willing that I worked on…coming soon! You can check it here.
matthew crosby 