Matthews, Arlene Modica

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MATTHEWS, Arlene Modica

PERSONAL:

Female; children: one son.

ADDRESSES:

E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer. Instructor with a Scholastic Aptitude Test preparation service; founder, Your College Coach online.

WRITINGS:

Why Did I Marry You Anyway?: Good Sense and Good Humor in the First Year—and After, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1988.

If I Think about Money So Much, Why Can't I Figure It Out?: Understanding and Overcoming Your Money Complex, Summit Books (New York, NY), 1991.

(With Nancy Wasserman Cocola) How to Manage Your Mother: Skills and Strategies to Improve Mother-Daughter Relationships, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1992.

The Engaged Woman's Survival Guide, Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 1993.

Excited, Exhausted, Expecting: The Emotional Life of Mothers-to-Be, Berkley Publishing Group (New York, NY), 1995.

The Seven Keys to Calm: Essential Steps for Staying Calm under Any Circumstances, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1997.

(With Mimi Cooper) Color Smart: How to Use Color to Enhance Your Business and Personal Life, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 2000.

Getting In without Freaking Out: The Official College Admissions Guide for Overwhelmed Parents, Three Rivers Press (New York, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Arlene Modica Matthews is the author of self-help books, both as sole author and in collaboration with other writers. A title that falls into the latter category is How to Manage Your Mother: Skills and Strategies to Improve Mother-Daughter Relationships, written with Nancy Wasserman Cocola. The authors find that women of all ages, backgrounds, and levels of achievement have difficulty relating positively to their mothers. They list categories of mothers and suggest ways for daughters to deal with them, one of those being keeping an "optimum distance."

As her own son reached college age, Matthews embarked on the challenges she covers in Getting In without Freaking Out: The Official College Admissions Guide for Overwhelmed Parents, which addresses researching and visiting colleges, test preparation, the admissions process, and the final preparations for sending a young person off to college. The volume contains information helpful both to teens and their parents. "Parents will appreciate the humor and candor of this helpful resource," according to Vanessa Bush in Booklist.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, March 15, 1995, Kathryn Carpenter, review of Excited, Exhausted, Expecting: The Emotional Life of Mothers-to-Be, p. 1296; July, 2000, Barbara Jacobs, review of Color Smart: How to Use Color to Enhance Your Business and Personal Life, p. 1978; January 1, 2006, Vanessa Bush, review of Getting In without Freaking Out: The Official College Admissions Guide for Overwhelmed Parents, p. 34.

Publishers Weekly, March 15, 1991, Genevieve Stuttaford, review of If I Think about Money So Much, Why Can't I Figure It Out?: Understanding and Overcoming Your Money Complex, p. 52; March 16, 1992, review of How to Manage Your Mother: Skills and Strategies to Improve Mother-Daughter Relationships, p. 70; June 26, 2000, review of Color Smart, p. 67.