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1) First of all, tell us a bit about yourself and your background.

Because it's a pretty good sum up, here's the "autobio" from my website:

I grew up some in southeastern Tennessee and then some more in Delaware. I spent a lot of my time making up stories, drawing pictures and singing (often to audiences of trees). I now, miraculously, make a living doing the same things. My work appears in Reader's Digest, The Missouri Review, The Chronicle of Higher Education, UCLA Today, NEA Today, Adjunct Advocate, AFT-On Campus, Inside Higher Ed and many other publications. My first children's picture book, Phoebe and Chub, came out in the spring of 2005 from Northland

Publishing/Rising Moon. This past spring I had the distinct honor to give a reading with Lemony Snicket (or rather Daniel Handler, "the official representative of Lemony Snicket in all legal, literary and social matters") and former United States poet laureate, Billy Collins. I also sing, on a regular basis, to audiences of people (and occasionally trees), opening shows for, amongst others, Richie Havens, James King, and Los Lobos.

2) What first got you started in writing?

Writing to me is an extension of play. When I was growing up (ages 0 to 12), my family and I lived just outside of a tiny town in Tennessee. Something like 1,500 to 2,000 people tops. There weren't a whole lot of kids my age to play with in town, and there were even fewer out where my family and I lived. My brother (my one and only sibling) was/is three years older than me. We had a tendency then to fight—a lot.

So to keep the peace in general and myself from bodily harm specifically, I often ended up playing alone, making up all sorts of characters and places and situations.

For instance, under our basement stairs I kept a shop/office/laboratory where I sold rocks, pieces of bark and old bottles, filed papers, and created magic potions for my stuffed animals. To get to work, me, the shopkeeper/businessman/mad scientist had to take a flat-bottomed canoe (i.e., an old plastic tub) across the wide and sometimes sea-monster-filled expanse of our cement basement floor. I'd use various voices for all my roles—from Lincoln log salesman to professional detective, to robber, to Groucho Marx, to The Flash, to Elvis Presley, etc. (Proudly, I note, I was an Elvis imitator before he died).

I had a brief career as our neighborhood news reporter for my self-published paper, The Daily Hotdog. (There might've been 3 editions in all). My point is that writing, making up stories now as an adult, feels like the same thing I was doing as a kid—that is, playing.

3) What genre would you say that you feel most at ease with?

The written word. I like drawing, but my skills in that area feel very basic to me —even though I make the majority of my income from cartoons and illustrations. I'm very insecure about drawing. I usually spend 20 seconds to, at the most, 30 minutes, on a single caption. But the drawings—they will take me forever to finish—anywhere from several hours to several days. I'm constantly redrawing cartoons, and I'm still, often, not completely happy with them. Did I mention I was a perfectionist?

4) How would your books encourage kids to read?

The best way to encourage kids to read is to read to them and have them read books to you. I have only one childrens' book published so far—Phoebe and Chub (Rising Moon/Northland Publishing). In Phoebe and Chub, we find a tree frog who is writing her own book, Phoebe's Canyon Survival Guide.

Implicitly, I hope the fact a frog can write her own book will encourage students/children who read my book to write their own stories. To me, the two activities of reading and writing go hand in hand.

5) What got you started doing cartoons?

I always doodled—on anything. My homework, the newspaper, dinner napkins, margins of books, my shoes, my own hand, you name it. I doodled when I was a student listening to teachers give lectures. I doodled when I was a teacher listening to students give reports. I often doodle now when I talk on the phone.

Perhaps it's an excuse, but I really do think it helps me hear better. If I concentrate on someone's face, her voice, his hand gestures, I often get lost in those things and miss whatever important information that person's trying to tell me.

Soooo . . . I doodle.

In high school, I started drawing cartoons for our school's newspaper, The Buzz. One of the editors of that paper, a friend of mine, went on to work for The Chronicle of Higher Education. Years ago now, she called me out of the blue and asked if I had or could come up with any cartoons about teaching. She didn't have anything to do with the decision-making on which cartoons of mine they'd use—ifany—but she would pass on my work to the right people.

Amazingly to me, the Chronicle bought three cartoons from my first batch. In one shot, I'd made about half of my salary for teaching an entire semester of English Composition. Soon I tossed aside my adjunct teaching jobs and began drawing cartoons and writing full time as a freelancer.

6) Tell us about Phoebe and Chub.

Phoebe and Chub is a children's picture book which came out from Rising Moon/Northland Publishing in the spring of 2005. I wrote the story and helped guide the overall layout. The pictures were painted by the super-talented, Sheila Aldridge. The story's inspiration came from a solo camping trip I took into the Grand Canyon in May, 2003. On that trip I saw many beautiful and interesting things, including tree frogs and one fish; this fish followed me upriver to the bank where I made my camp the first night.

As I mentioned earlier, the story centers around a tree frog who is writing her own book, Phoebe's Canyon Survival Guide. Phoebe's bookhas 3 basic rules: Make Lots of Friends; Make Your Wishes Known; and Enjoy Every Moment. Through the story, we see Phoebe embody each of these rules as she meets her best friend, Chub, a humpback chub, as well as a whole host of other animals commonly found in the Grand Canyon and across the Colorado Plateau. Through the help of all her friends, Phoebe's wish to fly comes true on her birthday.

7) You have done a lot of cartoons about politics and education. What are some of the points that you are trying to make?

I'm trying to be funny mostly. If people don't guffaw or snort or, at the very least, smile, I've not done my job. But yes, I do have a political stance or slant. I am, for instance, a firm believer in better pay and conditions for college adjunct instructors across the globe. (I've not forgotten my own experiences as an adjunct.) The current situation in higher education exploits teachers fresh out of graduate school.

Because adjunct teachers cost so little—they receive a small lump sum for a salary and usually no benefits whatsoever—they help the administrators maintain their, in comparison, incredibly high salaries and benefits. Without teachers, you wouldn't have a school.

So, in my mind, the teachers, not the administrators, should be the most rewarded, the best paid. Furthermore, I'm for reform of higher education, a move from the current capitalist business model of operation to something more egalitarian and democratic. (What that might look like is something I'm working on for a humorous illustrated essay slated to be published in an upcoming issue ofthe Adjunct Advocate.)

Until such reform occurs, higher education will remain another consumer item as easily bought up as iPods and potato chips—though much more expensive. As for national and local politics, I am for hearing a plurality of voices, especially those which aren't readily, nor often, heard.

So, along with any unheard human perspectives, ideally all animals, plants and even minerals would be considered fully when human beings debate decisions on how to proceed—whether it's where to put a new playground, a military action, the idea of "costs" long or short term, biofuel vs. electric, paper or plastic, etc.

I am a firm believer in Thich Nhat Hanh's concept of Inter-being; everything is connected, and any action one takes will, in some way, effect everything else.

8) You spent ten years in the classroom. What lessons have you learned?

You've got to be an extraordinary person to be a good teacher. You've got to spend a lot of time on it, work very hard, to do a good job. That's what I learned. I deeply respect anyone who has the courage, patience, and love to take on that job.

I still, on occasion, conduct short term (one to several hour) workshops. And last fall, after a five year hiatus, I taught an "Intro to Poetry" course at our local university—but that was a very rare stint for me and something I am unlikely to do again for a very long time—if ever. I enjoyed the class, my students and their poems. But teaching isn't something I'm interested in pursuing.

Perhaps if I was a better person, I'd still be teaching. (If you'd like to hear more about my teaching experience, please read my essay, "Why I Quit Teaching," originally published in The Chronicle of Higher Education at http://www.matthewhenryhall.com/quit1a.html )

9) What questions have I neglected to ask?

"Why were you passed up as the new host of The Price is Right?"

No comment.

"What're you working on currently?"

Cartoons for a variety of publications, including the The Chronicle of Higher Education, Adjunct Advocate and Inside Higher Ed as well as cartoons for a book titled, What They Didn't Teach You in Graduate School (199 Helpful Hints for Your Academic Career) by Paul Gray and David E. Drew due out from Stylus Publishing in 2008. I'm also working on a young adult novel titled, Apples from Heaven. The novel revolves around Loelle, a teenager, who lives on an apple orchard during the late 1800's/early 1900's. Through the help of an African grey parrot named, Don Quixote, an elderly apple-picker/storyteller named, Jozeph, and the ghost of an overreaching prospector, Loelle discovers some dangerous secrets about her father's new business partner. I'm on track to show it to prospective publishers this coming fall.

Please visit Matthew's website at http://www.matthewhenryhall.com

Published August 8, 2007