Today I am going to introduce you to a writer from Canada. His name is Matthieu Gallant. He has a new book coming out in January called When The Levee Breaks – it is book two of the Outage Series. I read the first book in the series Darkness Falls in less than 48 hours. I will post information about both books in a little while. Right now I would like you to read a bit of information on the man who is writing these books.
I was born and raised on the East Coast of Canada, in a province called New Brunswick. Went to school from Kindergarten to grade 12 in French, so I’m fluently bilingual. You might be interested to know that even from a fairly young age I was fascinated by the apocalyptic genre. In my junior high to high school days I was known for getting up at the end of classes – when the teacher was done for the day – and drawing “end of the world sketches” on the chalkboard. I know that sounds a little out there, and I doubt in today’s hyper-sensitive environment I would be able to do it without having the SWAT team called on me, but back then I was allowed to grab a nub of chalk and draw out my fanciful ideas about how it would all end. Many times my classmates would take part and give me suggestions, so they were into it.
Since graduation I’ve gone to college twice, once to get a diploma in the IT field and again a few years later for journalism. To be quite honest, as the product of the French education system, I was really more interested in taking journalism to measure myself against the products of the parallel English system. I ended up graduating as the valedictorian and giving the commencement speech, so I guess I measured up just fine. It was also during that period in my life that I started working on the Outage Series. It started as just some journal type entries that grew and grew until one day I created a character, Robert Jones Hendricks. (The last name is thanks to the Jimi Hendrix CD case on my desk at the time.)
Since then I’ve spent some time working as a journalist in every possible medium, but that didn’t work out too well for me. I’m not pushy enough to get the good interviews (just like I’m not pushy enough to be a good salesman.) I spent some of that time working as a driving instructor (oh the books I could write) as well as in the IT field, where I am currently. I would desperately like to get out of IT and get into writing full-time.
Family wise, I live with my long-term girlfriend and my eight year old step-daughter. My mom and dad are still alive and well and I have a younger brother. I wouldn’t say we’re all that close – even though I live nearby I can go a couple of weeks without seeing them – but we definitely love one another and get along well enough.
Dressing Your Book 