Theatre & Literature

Matt Rothwell, who comes from Swindon near Wolverhampton, has set up his own company to publish a debut book, Drunk in Charge of a Foreign Language (The Diary of a Spanish Misadventure).

“I had a lot of interest from a couple of publishers who were very encouraging and offered a lot of advice," said Matt.

"Ultimately, however, they decided not to proceed which was very frustrating.”

Pleased with the response he chose to go a step further and get it into print as a paperback by setting up "Ametralladora", his own publishing house.

The book tells the true tale of a ninety day camping tour around Spain undertaken by Matt and his wife in 2006.

Disaster

It was to be a road trip of a lifetime but started to go wrong the moment they crossed the English Channel, then turned into a full scale disaster thirty days in when his wife asked him for a divorce and flew back to England.

Not really knowing what to do Matt stayed in Spain for another two months and started to write.

“Believe it or not, it is a comedy,” said Matt.

Comic potential

“I started it as a means of coming to terms with the whole episode.

"Then I realised that the comic potential of the situations I had found myself in when I was on my own would give the tale a different slant.

"Almost as soon as I returned to England, I bought myself a laptop, got the next plane out to Spain and spent another four months there writing the book.”

It will certainly appeal to the Bridget Jones generation and quite possibly to the readers of the so-called lad magazines.

More to come?

The decision to publish has been justified by a couple of major retailers accepting it into their stock lists, no mean feat in itself.

Matt is currently working on his second book but said he wouldn't reveal anything about it other than it was a continuation of sorts to Drunk in Charge.

He said he also hoped to publish a book of short travel stories by other first time authors through Ametralladora and was always keen to hear from potential contributors.

Drunk In Charge of a Foreign Language (The Diary of a Spanish Misadventure) was due to be published on December 10 2007.