Charles Mathes has forged a unique career in three notoriously difficult industries: publishing, theatre and art.
As a freshman at Washington University in St. Louis, Mathes took over the college literary magazine and established a typesetting and design business that eventually produced all the University's guides and manuals, as well as The Counseling Psychologist (the official journal of the American Psychological Association) and various publications of the American College Personnel Association. By the time he graduated from the Theatre Arts Conservatory program at Webster College Mathes was chief feature writer and Associate Editor of the St. Louis city magazine, The St. Louisan.
After earning an M.F.A. from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh as Shubert Fellow of Playwriting and working professionally as an actor in repertory productions and summer stock, Mathes struck out for New York. His first job was as an assistant to an unknown young magician with the unlikely stage name of David Copperfield.
In 1975 Mathes landed a temporary job typing address labels at the office of theatrical greats, Rodgers & Hammerstein. By 1986, Mathes headed R & H's international play publishing and licensing company and was responsible for the collection and distribution of millions of dollars of royalties and the annual licensing of over 2,500 productions. As an editor he had created definitive new editions of such classic American musicals as OKLAHOMA!, ON YOUR TOES and ONCE UPON A
MATTRESS, as well as adapting Rodgers & Hammerstein's 1957 teleplay, CINDERELLA, for the stage, and incorporating lost material into a new version of PAL JOEY. He had also assisted on several Broadway revivals, working with such theatre luminaries as Yul Brynner and Angela Lansbury.
But after attending Broadway shows three nights a week and traveling the world to promote the R & H catalogue, Mathes found he was burnt out. After taking stock of his life, he returned to his own writing and enrolled in the NYU appraisal program to pursue his love of fine and decorative arts. He soon had a new job with one of New York's top appraisers and spent the next few years
evaluating paintings and furniture in some of the city's most elegant apartments. In 1993 he became the director of a prominent Manhattan gallery specializing in 19th and 20th century European and American art.
Mathes's first book, a coffee table volume entitled THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA: A STATE BY STATE CELEBRATION came out in 1990 with an introduction by Bob Hope, followed by TREASURES OF AMERICAN MUSEUMS in 1991. Mathes's first mystery, THE GIRL WITH THE PHONY NAME was published by St. Martin's Press to glowing reviews in 1992. Library Journal named his second mystery, THE GIRL WHO REMEMBERED SNOW (1996), as one of the top five mysteries of the year. His most recent books are THE GIRL AT THE END OF THE LINE (1999) and THE GIRL IN THE FACE OF THE CLOCK (2001).
Charles Mathes is married to Arlene Graston, an artist and writer. They live in Manhattan and their 2003 collaboration, IN EVERY MOON THERE IS A FACE, was awarded the Gold Medal for Best Children's Picture Book of the Year by Foreword Magazine.
