Matthew Swanson - words, harmonica, guitar

Unwitting child of the Peace Corps, Matthew Swanson was born at the base of a dormant volcano in Pasto, Narino, Colombia in South America and spent the first eight months of his life marauding from Machu Picchu to Santiago de Cali wrapped tightly in a receiving blanket and thus unable to move his arms. He is, consequently, anxious about physical confinement, though this is perhaps also due to having been placed beneath a recycling bin when he was 11 years old by a bully who then stood upon it, refusing to release him for at least five minutes, though it felt like much, much longer at the time.

After aborted careers as actor, poet, singer/songwriter, and blues harmonica player, Matthew has finally settled into writing a kind of frenetic prose that seems well suited to absorbing his tremendous stores of nervous energy.

In addition to more legitimate professional endeavors, he once enjoyed a three-week appointment as vice president of a company that protects children by manufacturing a product which, when properly installed, keeps their tiny fingers from unwanted mangling, amputation, or worse. In 2006 he threw in the towel on the corporate grind and fled to Chestertown, Maryland to live in a barn and make books with his wife, illustrator Robbi Behr. The two are responsible for the various titles produced by Idiots'Books.

In April of this year, he expects to meet his first child, and hopes very much that it does not have his nose.