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Mending A Shattered Mind And Body With Writing

Red Hen Press
Credit Red Hen Press

North Carolina writer Sebastian Matthews was almost killed by a dead man. He and his family had a head-on collision on a North Carolina highway in 2011 when a driver in the oncoming lane passed away from a sudden heart attack. Matthews and his wife were left in wheelchairs with countless broken bones, bruised spirits and a healthy 8-year-old to manage.

Host Frank Stasio talks with Asheville-based writer Sebastian Matthews about the new book of poetry and prose, 'Beginner's Guide to a Head-On Collision'.

Their following years of grueling recovery changed Matthew’s perspective on what it means to be disabled. The experience inspired him to write a new book of prose and poetry called “Beginner’s Guide to a Head-On Collision” (Red Hen Press/ 2017). Host Frank Stasio talks with Asheville-based writer Sebastian Matthews about the new book in which he deconstructs each moment of the crash, the agonizing healing process and eventual return to normalcy. 

Copyright 2018 North Carolina Public Radio

Robert is a journalist and award-winning documentary filmmaker in the Triangle. He grew up in White Lake, a rural resort community in southeastern NC. The tales he heard about White Lake as a child would become the topic of his UNC-TV historical documentary, White Lake: Remembering the Nation's Safest Beach. In May 2017, he received a bachelor's degree in interactive multimedia from the Media and Journalism School at UNC-Chapel Hill with a minor in religious studies.
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.