Published on 9 August 2016 in Change Seven Magazine. To jump to the review, click here!

If you’ve ever considered traveling and living abroad in Germany, you’ll love this collection of stories from Matt Potter.

Potter, of Adelaide, Australia, is the founder of Pure Slush, and the history of his publishing venture is very much interwoven with his adventures in Germany.  Here are some outtakes from his “History of Pure Slush:”

I was living in Berlin across the northern summer of 2009, working as an English as a Second Language teacher one morning a week, and living off savings otherwise. And eager to meet new people, and do something different, I joined my first writing group, through Toytown. Toytown is a very large English-language internet forum for people living in Germany, and so on a Wednesday evening, I attended the first session of the writers’ group at a deutsche Sprachschule (or German language school) on the aptly named Kantstraβe. (Yes, even native Berliners smile when they say the name.)

Cut to 2010 a year later, and I am back in Berlin over the northern summer again. Luisa and Claudia are attending a new writing group, one they have greater hope for, actually convened through SAND and run by Jason. This group is indeed much better – we actually write when we meet, writing exercises that are useful and fun and we come away from each session feeling we have learned something and developed and actually, on top of everything, had a good time.

Soon I start submitting to other fiction sites I discover online.

…and the rest, as they say, is history.

As I note in my review of the book, full disclosure, Matt has published two of my stories.  “Upfurler,” which is in the anthology FIVE Pure Slush and has been reprinted many times, and “Hamartia Lippincott,” which is on the website.

I hope you enjoy my review of Hamburgers and Berliners and Other Courses In Between, over at Change Seven Magazine. Click here to hop on over.