[Interview] Matt Beam
Matt Beam is an author, a teacher and a freelance journalist. He has taught in various capacities in Toronto, Vancouver, Guatemala, Fiji, Australia and New Zealand and has written for newspapers that include the Toronto Star , the National Post , Toronto Life , and Toro magazine in Canada. His first young adult novel, Getting to First Base with Danalda Chase , was published in the spring of 2005. His second novel, Can You Spell Revolution? followed in the fall of 2006. His third novel, Earth to Nathan Blue , will arrive in the spring of 2007, along with the U.S. version of Getting to First Base . Matt Beam spoke about his writing and his concerns as a writer. When did you decide you wanted to be a writer? I started saying I wanted to be a writer when I was 15 years old, but apart from a few short stories in late high school, I didn't do much about it until more than ten years later, in 1998. I was a teacher in New Zealand at the time, and I had to provide a two-page