Books by Matt Potter

For Pre-Intermediate to Upper-Intermediate English as a Second Language students In our resource rich world, we can come to depend upon technologies to assist us in so many ways, including learning. This book includes 45 speaking, writing and listening activities for teaching English as a Second Language, fully contained within the book, on the page: no other resources needed, not even copying. You can enter the classroom and all you need is a whiteboard, a marker, and the book. No other technology is necessary! All students need is a paper, a pen and their own abilities. And beyond your own talents, enthusiasm and time, all you will truly need when using this book, is a white-board, and a marker.

For Pre-Intermediate to Upper-Intermediate English as a Second Language students In our resource rich world, we can come to depend upon technologies to assist us in so many ways, including learning. This book includes 45 speaking, writing and listening activities for teaching English as a Second Language, fully contained within the book, on the page: no other resources needed, not even copying. You can enter the classroom and all you need is a whiteboard, a marker, and the book. No other technology is necessary! All students need is a paper, a pen and their own abilities. And beyond your own talents, enthusiasm and time, all you will truly need when using this book, is a white-board, and a marker.

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 people: 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'

Literary Nonfiction. Memoir. Travel Writing. "Matt Potter unflinchingly allows us inside his mind and heart, sharing fears and insecurities that most of us would never dare to reveal. His book is both poignant and funny, and through Potter's eyes we get a vivid picture of Germany--its landscapes, people, customs and quirks--while also witnessing one man's struggle to make sense of his own life as well as life at large."--Len Kuntz, author of The Dark Sunshine "Matt Potter's HAMBURGERS AND BERLINERS took me to Germany--with brief forays to Austria, Portugal and other European countries--without me having to shift an inch from my sofa. Potter's prose is, as always, absorbing, amusing, enlightening and engaging. If you are thinking of a trip to Europe (or Australia, where Potter originates) make sure you read HAMBURGERS AND BERLINERS before you go. This intimate portrait of an Australian abroad should be nestled in your hand luggage beside your spare undies and bottled water--it's just as essential. Potter examines the differences between cultures big and small-between countries, continents or, at the other end of the scale, the microcultures that exist within a block or a street. He constantly questions the what and the why of things, observing idiosyncrasies and habits and ingrained patterns of thought in a way that makes you see your own surroundings and behaviours afresh. Never uncomfortably disrespectful (though often funny), Potter had me smirking with some of his descriptions and going 'Aha!' at others. HAMBURGERS AND BERLINERS is that rare thing, a guide to humanity, forgiving in its delivery but covering every niggly aspect of living as a foreigner abroad in delicious detail, warts and all. If you want to give your brain a holiday, get it, read it, and have a bal

30 stories on love and loss, eating and ridicule, ambition and fortune, luck and misfortune ... all tied neatly in a hilarious bow of absurdity!

History is written by the winners. It's the faithful servants, the insiders, the ones who stick around, who can adapt to almost any condition that get to write the official histories. They publish the memoirs, park in the directors' spots, erect the statues, form the new governments, wipe out the pockets of resistance, recruit the new starters, set the agendas, talk on the documentaries and retrospectives. Yet theirs - the official version - is never the whole story. The quitter's tale offers a far more compelling, and often a more honest version of history. The Last Goodbye, Matt Potter collects the pithiest, angriest, most hilarious messages of resignation throughout history, including those whose exits were a springboard to eventual success, such as Steve Jobs, George Orwell and Charlie Sheen.It's full of self-deception, bloody knives, betrayal, honour, disgrace, disgust, thwarted ambition and shattered hopes, and sometimes a wicked sting in the tail . . .