In addition to being great friends, brother and sister pair Matt and Jessica are also co-authors of the YA book Broken Circle (Akashic Books) and now, they’re co-workers here at Catalyst HQ. There’s no sibling rivalry here! Matt, who in in his downtime from being a parent and author, will also be heading up the newest Catalyst imprint—Powers Squared! In another life, Matt studied Oncology, eventually earning his PhD in Oncological Studies from the University of Utah. It was during his studies that he realized that science could be, and should be, for all of us. Science can dazzle us, excite us, captivate us, but only when it’s done in engaging ways. We’ll be bringing those kinds of engaging science stories to readers everywhere through the Powers Squared imprint—beginning with the first release Cat Among the Pigeons written by David Muirhead and featuring illustrations by Patricia de Villiers. Welcome to the team, Matt!
Matt and Jessica found some time between parenting, writing, and publishing to have a little chat about life as a Powers kid, reading and writing, and what you can expect from Powers Squared in the coming years. Learn more about the Powers Squared mission and Cat Among the Pigeons here.
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Jessica: As your sister, I’m 100% excited for you to enter this whole publishing venture with me. But I’m also 100% curious as to why you decided to do it. Can you tell us?
Matt: Well, I had a choice: It was either going into publishing or learn to swallow swords for the circus. I decided to pursue the more challenging endeavor. By the way, as a stay- at-home dad, running off to the circus really wasn’t an option.
In all seriousness, that is actually a complicated question. As you know, growing up, I avoided all things writing-related because of my difficulty learning to read and my horrific spelling. Because of being dyslexic, I was 12 or 13 when reading finally clicked and the pain of deciphering those little black squiggles subsided. Still, I loved literature prior to learning to read. It turns out that enjoying literature and being able to consume it as an individual are mutually exclusive.
Thankfully, you, Erik (our brother), and Mom and Dad all read to me when I was still completely illiterate and it was fantastic. I received quite an eclectic exposure to story because of this. Erik read Isaac Asimov, Harry Harrison, and most things science fiction to me. Mom and Dad read the classics including C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien to me. And then you read to me all of L.M. Montgomery and Madeleine L’Engle. By the time I did learn to read, I had quite the exposure to interesting books. The lives you live and the emotions you experience through story are incredible. The impossible is possible. To live in another world and to experience another life is the beginning of empathy.
I love story. There are two art forms that take me out of my own head in a way that is freeing and transformational and that is story, either written or heard, and music. What I love about books is that the process of transformation happens over a longer, more in-depth time frame. I am continually amazed at what people can create. Publishing gives me a vehicle for encouraging and disseminating transformational books.
And why not do it with my best friend in the process? We both have the ethos to produce literature we would be proud to stand up and say, “Read this book! You will be better for it!”
But don’t get the impression that I am some sort of literature snob. I am not. Sometimes, the most influential books are not “high literature” but literary works that fulfill or illuminate a need in society. Works such as Jurassic Park have led to interest in science and technology and its role in our lives even if it would not be considered a “literary” work in the classical sense.
Jessica: So what sort of books are you interested in publishing?
Matt: I’ve always enjoyed the narratives in historical fiction and learned a lot of history in the process. I believe that science is no different and we would gain a lot by increasing the number of good stories about science.
Let me tell you about how I came to this conclusion. It was a dark and stormy night…. Just kidding. In reality, I have fallen asleep reading many “great” scientific papers. Wouldn’t it be better if someone rewrote those papers with protagonists, antagonists, evil and good? Way more interesting.
I’m also excited about a multiplicity of voices. I believe that academia is fantastic at professionalizing people and homogenizing their voices so everyone sounds like everyone else. But I fear that many creative minds are murdered in the process, or are never shepherded into science in the first place, or if they do make it into science, their creativity is never actively cultivated as a resource. What we need, now more than ever, is to champion scientific creativity as standard, not an exception. And what better way to do that than to publish like we believe this!
But most of all, I like cool science and I want to publish books that I like.
Jessica: So tell us about the first book you selected to publish via Powers Squared. What is it and why did you like it enough to publish it? And when is it coming out?
Matt: We are publishing Cat Among the Pigeons: A riotous assembly of unrespectable African creatures written by the South African author David Muirhead, and it is coming out January 2020. I love this book because it’s witty, quirky, funny and I learned all sorts of things I didn’t know about the animals in southern Africa and beyond while being thoroughly entertained. It balances the scientific knowledge of these animals and their habitats with fascinating facts of their strange behavior and the local myths that have grown up around them.
But what I really love about this book is that it connects us with species that are quickly disappearing. These are the animals we co-evolved with over millennia, the reason we survived in Africa, the cradle of H. sapiens, and these animals are a bellwether to the health of our planet and the continued survival of our own species. If we know about these creatures, then we have the choice to care. If we choose to care, we have the opportunity to change the course of the future. And this is why we can stand up and shout, “Cat Among the Pigeons! Read it! You will be better for it!”
Jessica: What’s going to happen to your own writing now that you are becoming a publisher? I ask this because I’m always curious to see how this venture in publishing has simultaneously sidelined my own writing career but also made it imminently more possible and exciting. These aren’t mutually exclusive things! I’m still trying to figure out a balance. How about you?
I don’t know all the answers to that yet. I am going to continue writing because it relieves stress. How much and what I write? I’m not sure. Hopefully the next big thing! Whatever that is!
