M. T. Anderson’s satirical science fiction novel Feed was a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the LA Times Book Award; his Gothic historical novel The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Volume One, won the National Book Award and the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award. He has also written music criticism, picture books, and stories for adults. For many years, he was fiction editor of 3rd bed, a journal of experimental poetry and prose.

As this story suggests, Anderson was (and continues to be) a fan of old fantasy pulp: Robert E. Howard, H. P. Lovecraft, Jack Vance, and Clark Ashton Smith. Acting as a Dungeon Master for a D&D campaign in his early teen years taught him most of what he knows about creating narratives. As he sees it, an interest in fantasy drives right to the heart of what it means to be a geek: someone who admires barbarians, but who has to avoid swordplay due to really bad asthma.