Writing
Some samples of my writing can be found by visiting the links here:
http://www.mattbucher.com/tag/writing/
Media Mentions
The New Yorker: Beyond Infinite Jest by D.T. Max
The first wave of enthusiasts were bewitched by the book’s pyrotechnics “It was DFW’s lexical genius; no one had really seen it since Pynchon,” Matt Bucher, who runs the Wallace-l Listserv, remembers more than Wallace’s ideas about redemption.
The New York Times: The Book Club with Just One Member by Motoko Rich
Matthew Bucher, a textbook editor in Austin, Tex., who administers “Wallace-L,” an online discussion group for fans of David Foster Wallace, said that the expertise of mathematicians, linguists and other fans sharing insights with the online group vastly improved his reading of “Infinite Jest.” That doesn’t stop Mr. Bucher from having a deeply intimate relationship with books. “I still read the book at home at night by myself with one lamp,” he said. “The next day it does enhance my experience to talk about it.”
The New Yorker: Leave Me Alone by Ian Crouch
Rich introduces Matthew Bucher, who runs an online discussion group for David Foster Wallace Fans called “Wallace-L.” While Bucher is a clear example of the modern reader “interested in making connections and building communities” he also values the solitude that reading provides: “I still read the book at home at night by myself with one lamp.”
Wall Street Journal: David Foster Wallace: His Secret Life As a Philosopher by Moira G. Weigel
If the movement to which Eckert is alluding has a head, it is probably Matt Bucher of Austin, Texas, whose day job is editing textbooks at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. For the past eight years, Bucher has administered Wallace-L, the largest list-serve connecting Wallace fans across the United States. Bucher explains that Wallace-L spun off from a Thomas Pynchon emailing list in the late 1990s. It has swelled from about 100 members in 1996-97 to 1000 at present. Bucher, who started monitoring the list in 2002, reports that there was a roughly 25% increase in membership in the months following Wallace’s death. Though generally pleased, Bucher complains that some of the information online has gotten less reliable.
LA Times Jacket Copy: Infinite Summer is Over but 2666 Spring Calls by Carolyn Kellogg
Matt Bucher decided to restart the big book online reading group elsewhere, at bolanobolano.com, where he’s posted a reading schedule that stretches for more than three months.
Boston.com: Sobering Tales by Alex Beam
A few years ago, Wallace’s eloquent, and anonymous, testimonial to Granada House surfaced on Matt Bucher’s “Wallace-l” computer mailing list, compiled for devoted DFW fans. “It was like finding a needle in a haystack,” Bucher says.