M. T. Anderson Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Net Worth and Family

While he was writing Feed, Anderson took in younger, pop-culture oriented media, such as Seventeen, Maxim, and Teen Vogue. He used these media sources to convey an accurate teenage voice, but even more depleted and abbreviated. He’s used this method many times, including reading 18th century novels during his writing of The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing. A shy person, Anderson has stated that he greatly prefers writing to public speaking. As a writer he does not shy from taking on difficult questions and deeper, more mature concepts and themes. Unlike many other young-adult writers, Anderson views the characters he creates simply as figures moving and acting on his terms. The only exception to this view of his characters has been his main character in The Astonishing Life, Octavian Nothing.

Taking readers back to the birth of the United States, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation features the son of an African princess, raised in unique circumstances, having been brought to the American colonies. Octavian becomes part of a college study, attempting to gauge the intelligence and overall potential of African Americans. Octavian’s mother dies from a college-mandated smallpox inoculation, and Octavian is forced to see the world for what it is. The Pox Party, part one, is told in Octavian’s voice while The Kingdom on the Waves is told in a sequence of letters. The novel is praised for its creativity and chaotic storyline. Teenagers are able to understand and relate to the story without having to know all the historical details in the novel. This novel has also attained its prestigious reputation based on the effort Anderson dedicated to researching the historical aspects of the book. Anderson tried to make the language as accurate to the time period, the 18th century, as possible.

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves (2008)

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Volume 1: The Pox Party (2006)

Feed is a young-adult novel focusing on the lives of teenagers in a future America. Within this dystopian society, young people are implanted with “the feed”, a computer chip that connects them to a global network of advertisements, images, audio messages, and text-based communication. The government uses the feed to profile everyone to show what their interests and dislikes are. Anyone who tries to ‘beat’ the feed can be denied later when they try to get information or help from the sources. The novel’s themes are corporate power and consumerism. Feed has also been regarded as a literary source for young adults to not only expand their knowledge of citizenship outside of the everyday youth status, but also increase their capacity for social change. The novel also focuses on the dependent nature of the characters; everyone is so dependent on the feed’s transmissions that everything else in society decays. Feed received praise for Anderson’s imaginative wit. The unique use of “futuristic” language is noted as one of the novel’s strong points. Feed won the Los Angeles Times Book Award and has been a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award. Feed was also named one of the ALA Best Books for Young Adults. The audio book version of Feed, narrated by David Aaron Baker, was an AudioFile Magazine Earphones Award Winner, and was also a finalist in Achievement in Production for the Audio Publishers Association 2004 Audie Awards®.

Anderson was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His father Will Anderson was an engineer, and his mother Juliana Anderson was an Episcopal priest. He attended St. Mark’s School, Harvard College, the University of Cambridge (England), and Syracuse University. Anderson worked at Candlewick Press before his first novel Thirsty (1997) was accepted for publication there. He has also worked as a disc jockey for WCUW radio; as an instructor at Vermont College of Fine Arts, where he now serves on the Board; and as a music critic for The Improper Bostonian. He currently lives in Cambridge (Mass.) and is on the Board of the National Children’s Book and Literacy Alliance, a national non-profit organization that advocates for literacy, literature, and libraries.

Matthew Tobin Anderson (born November 4, 1968), is an American writer of children’s books that range from picture books to young adult novels. He won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature in 2006 for The Pox Party, the first of two “Octavian Nothing” books, which are historical novels set in Revolution-era Boston. Anderson is known for using wit and sarcasm in his stories, as well as advocating that young adults are capable of mature comprehension.