M T Anderson

My latest book is Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Book I: The Pox Party.

It’s about a boy who discovers that he’s the subject of an experiment being conducted by a group of insane Enlightenment philosophers … and that he has always been the subject of this sinister experiment.

The best thing about being a writer is you commute thirty-seven seconds to work. And you can work in your bathrobe. And if you go out dancing or buy music on-line or travel to China or take up snorkeling or have a bad break-up, it’s all tax-deductible, because it’s all “material.”

If I wasn’t a writer I’d be crying.

My first published work was Thirsty, a vampire novel.

Morning person or night-owl? Night-owl. I have a very strict schedule: I write from eight at night until one in the morning, and then I despise what I wrote from one a.m. to two.

My first job was making popcorn at a theater. On my first night, the rotor jammed, the popcorn burned, the fire alarm went off, and they had to evacuate the theater. As you can imagine, my second job started a couple of days later.

On a quiz show, my special subject would be Music Before 1750.

My last holiday was in Nepal for five weeks. Gorgeous, and I only got bitten by leeches twice!

My perfect Saturday is just like any other day, because I’m a writer. See why if I weren’t a writer, I’d be crying?

The last CD I bought was a compilation of Georgian harpsichord music. ROCK, ROCK ON!

I’m currently reading a Gothic novel by Charles Brockdon Brown.

Big Brother or Idol? Big Brother, definitely. I’ve always wondered what other people talked about in the loo.

Favourite film/tv show is Twin Peaks, David Lynch’s surreal and hilarious murder drama from the eighties.

My favourite book is … Hard to say! Nabokov’s Bend Sinister?  Richard Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America? Tove Jansson’s Moominland Midwinter?

The book character I would most like to meet is Octavian Nothing, from my own book, so I could tell him to finish the sequel and I could go off on a holiday to Quebec while he wrote his own damn life.

The book character I would least like to meet is Hannibal Lector. Especially for dinner.

The worst thing I’ve ever written is religious poetry composed when I was a child. Rhymes “love” with “dove,” etc.

When I was growing up I wanted to be more popular with the girls.

My heroes are Fanny Kemble – an Abolitionist who gave up even her family to fight slavery; John Fletcher, the Jacobean playwright who died because he refused to leave Plague-ridden London until a tailor had finished making him a new suit; and Albert Schweitzer, who preached the sanctity of life and Bach.