468: Raise Your Story’s Stakes with Tension and Surprise - Interview

DIY MFA Radio

Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing MT Anderson. We’ll be talking about his book, Elf Dog and Owl Head, and raising your story’s stakes.

M. T. Anderson has written stories for adults, picture books for children, adventure novels for young readers, graphic novel adaptations of ancient French tales, and several books for older readers (both teens and adults). His satirical book Feed was a Finalist for the National Book Award and was the winner of the L.A. Times Book Prize. Both Time Magazine and National Public Radio have included it on their lists of the best 100 YA novels of all time. Another satirical science fiction novel, Landscape with Invisible Hand, has been turned into a movie starring Tiffany Haddish and Asante Blackk.

The first volume of Anderson’s Octavian Nothing saga, The Pox Party, won the National Book Award and the Boston Globe / Horn Book Prize. The second volume, The Kingdom on the Waves, was a New York Times best-seller. The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge, a tragicomic spy story for young goblins written with Newbery-Honor winner Eugene Yelchin, was a Finalist for the National Book Award in 2018.

Anderson’s nonfiction book Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad was long-listed for the National Book Award.

He has published stories for adults in literary journals like The Northwest Review, The Colorado Review, and Conjunctions. Several of his stories have appeared in the Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror collections. His nonfiction articles and reviews have been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Slate, and Salon.

He has curated concerts that bring together text and classical music all over New England.

You can find him on his website or follow him on Twitter.

In this episode MT Anderson and I discuss:

• Weaving events from your real life into a fantastical story

• Why you need to have rules for the magic you create in order for it to be fun.

• How to reverse engineer and perfect the opening of your novel.

Plus, his #1 tip for writers.

For more info and show notes: diymfa.com/468