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Boston, MA Boston, MA
Bio
MT Anderson is an accomplished writer who has written a wide variety of titles, including works of fantasy and satire for a range of ages. Anderson grew up outside of Boston, Massachusetts. He was educated in English literature at Harvard University and Cambridge University, and went on to receive his MFA in Creative Writing from Syracuse University.
Before becoming a writer, Anderson held several other jobs, some of which he has used as inspiration for his writing. He worked as a burger flipper, a department store cashier and a radio DJ. His previous novels have included Thirsty, a vampire novel, Burger Wuss, a fast food revenge book and Feed, a futuristic satirical novel. Feed was a finalist for the National Book Award and won the L.A. Times Book Award for YA fiction in 2003. It was additionally a finalist for the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award. Anderson has also written a number of children’s picture books.
In The Game of Sunken Places, Brian and Gregory stay at a distant relative's home and stumble upon an old board game called The Game of Sunken Places, that mirrors a greater game in which they have suddenly become players. In the second book, The Suburb Beyond the Stars, Brian and Gregory continue to have strange experiences....people aren't where they're supposed to be, and houses are everywhere and seem to be taking over the world. The third and final book, The Empire of Gut and Bone, is published June 2011. These imaginative, fast-paced fantasies are thrill rides that are part quest, part mystery, part fantasy, and part Abbott and Costello.
MT Anderson currently lives in Boston, Massachusetts.
Scholastic
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/contributor/m-t-anderson
Interviews with the Author
NPR Interview
How He Writes: "I eat broccoli. I think about the plot. I pace in circles for hours, counter-clockwise, listening to music. I try to think of one detail in the scene I’m about to write that I'm really excited about writing. Until I can come up with that one detail, I pace. I put on another CD. I hum along. I get an idea. I prepare to begin. I shake out my fingers. I sit down. I type the first word. I erase it. I type in another first word, and consider the second word.
The phone rings. It's a friend calling to tell me a great story about running into her ex-stalker at Cinnabon. We talk for an hour and a half.
My time for writing is up. I go to bed. I feel guilty and miserable. Oh well. Better luck tomorrow."
Publishers Weekly Interview
[...]You’ve set this story in your hometown. Had you always wanted to write something about colonial Boston?
Some of my earliest memories involve the intimate connection of the people who live around here to the past. I would drive the route that Revere rode as I went to the orthodontist. But the first spark for the story was an incidental mention of a “pox party” in a book I was reading. That was an incredible image—and a very sensible idea, I think. Often it would be young people who would sequester themselves and then be infected with small pox to inoculate themselves against the disease. I had a vision in my mind of say, the cast of 90210, all holed up, covered in lesions.
Well, it reminded me of Feed. In fact, during the pox party scene in Octavian his teacher, Dr. Trefusis, says, “When I peer into the reaches of the most distant futurity, I fear that even in some unseen epoch when there are colonies on the moon itself, there shall be gatherings like this, where the young, blinded by privilege, shall dance and giggle and compare their poxy legions.” Was that a wink to the readers of Feed?
Yes, I was making a little joke there, but both books are about the same thing—how we lead our lives, willing to let others suffer so that we can have our luxuries. That’s brought home to me in Nepal where whatever you’re eating, there’s none of that sense of trying to conceal the process of production. An animal is killed and prepared to eat in plain view. Americans tend to focus on the moment of consumption rather than on the process. It’s the same with slavery. We had this great economy early in our history, but we don’t want to confront the fact that it was because one-fifth of our population was enslaved.
I am stunned to hear you say that Feed and Octavian are about the same thing. Do you think the audience is the same?
Is it the same? I have no idea. I can imagine some people really hating this book, thinking I have lost my mind. I suppose when I think about the audience, which I try not to do, I think of the kid who I was as a teen, and I think of adult readers of YA fiction. I’m thinking of the hyper-intelligent, counterculture kid. The kid who wants to know the things that aren’t being taught about our history. There are millions of those kids in schools around the country. I hope they will find this book.
Author's Website
http://mt-anderson.com/
MT Anderson is an accomplished writer who has written a wide variety of titles, including works of fantasy and satire for a range of ages. Anderson grew up outside of Boston, Massachusetts. He was educated in English literature at Harvard University and Cambridge University, and went on to receive his MFA in Creative Writing from Syracuse University.
Before becoming a writer, Anderson held several other jobs, some of which he has used as inspiration for his writing. He worked as a burger flipper, a department store cashier and a radio DJ. His previous novels have included Thirsty, a vampire novel, Burger Wuss, a fast food revenge book and Feed, a futuristic satirical novel. Feed was a finalist for the National Book Award and won the L.A. Times Book Award for YA fiction in 2003. It was additionally a finalist for the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award. Anderson has also written a number of children’s picture books.
In The Game of Sunken Places, Brian and Gregory stay at a distant relative's home and stumble upon an old board game called The Game of Sunken Places, that mirrors a greater game in which they have suddenly become players. In the second book, The Suburb Beyond the Stars, Brian and Gregory continue to have strange experiences....people aren't where they're supposed to be, and houses are everywhere and seem to be taking over the world. The third and final book, The Empire of Gut and Bone, is published June 2011. These imaginative, fast-paced fantasies are thrill rides that are part quest, part mystery, part fantasy, and part Abbott and Costello.
MT Anderson currently lives in Boston, Massachusetts.
Scholastic
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/contributor/m-t-anderson
Interviews with the Author
NPR Interview
How He Writes: "I eat broccoli. I think about the plot. I pace in circles for hours, counter-clockwise, listening to music. I try to think of one detail in the scene I’m about to write that I'm really excited about writing. Until I can come up with that one detail, I pace. I put on another CD. I hum along. I get an idea. I prepare to begin. I shake out my fingers. I sit down. I type the first word. I erase it. I type in another first word, and consider the second word.
The phone rings. It's a friend calling to tell me a great story about running into her ex-stalker at Cinnabon. We talk for an hour and a half.
My time for writing is up. I go to bed. I feel guilty and miserable. Oh well. Better luck tomorrow."
Publishers Weekly Interview
[...]You’ve set this story in your hometown. Had you always wanted to write something about colonial Boston?
Some of my earliest memories involve the intimate connection of the people who live around here to the past. I would drive the route that Revere rode as I went to the orthodontist. But the first spark for the story was an incidental mention of a “pox party” in a book I was reading. That was an incredible image—and a very sensible idea, I think. Often it would be young people who would sequester themselves and then be infected with small pox to inoculate themselves against the disease. I had a vision in my mind of say, the cast of 90210, all holed up, covered in lesions.
Well, it reminded me of Feed. In fact, during the pox party scene in Octavian his teacher, Dr. Trefusis, says, “When I peer into the reaches of the most distant futurity, I fear that even in some unseen epoch when there are colonies on the moon itself, there shall be gatherings like this, where the young, blinded by privilege, shall dance and giggle and compare their poxy legions.” Was that a wink to the readers of Feed?
Yes, I was making a little joke there, but both books are about the same thing—how we lead our lives, willing to let others suffer so that we can have our luxuries. That’s brought home to me in Nepal where whatever you’re eating, there’s none of that sense of trying to conceal the process of production. An animal is killed and prepared to eat in plain view. Americans tend to focus on the moment of consumption rather than on the process. It’s the same with slavery. We had this great economy early in our history, but we don’t want to confront the fact that it was because one-fifth of our population was enslaved.
I am stunned to hear you say that Feed and Octavian are about the same thing. Do you think the audience is the same?
Is it the same? I have no idea. I can imagine some people really hating this book, thinking I have lost my mind. I suppose when I think about the audience, which I try not to do, I think of the kid who I was as a teen, and I think of adult readers of YA fiction. I’m thinking of the hyper-intelligent, counterculture kid. The kid who wants to know the things that aren’t being taught about our history. There are millions of those kids in schools around the country. I hope they will find this book.
Author's Website
http://mt-anderson.com/
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