Who Am I?
My name is Matthew Gilbert Herron. Born in 1988 in Limestone, Maine, I now live in Austin, TX with my wife, Shelly, and our dog, Elsa.
As M.G. Herron, I write pulse-pounding sci-fi thrillers with a touch of the fantastic.
Books and reading have always been close to my heart. I love epic fantasies and fast-paced action adventure novels, and the dusty vanilla smell of old paperbacks is my happy place. I am enamored with words and turns of phrase that make your skin prickle.
I also enjoy being in nature. My soul has a stubborn independent streak that makes climbing mountains one of the most exhilarating things I can think of. I’ve guided rafts on the Yellowstone River and traveled across the world in search of adventures.
My love of writing, particularly the art of writing fiction, grew more slowly. I wrote a couple stories when I was young, but didn’t take writing seriously at first. I spent a lot more time playing video games, playing soccer, building websites, and generally goofing off.
While I grew up in Delaware, for college, I decided to try something new. I crossed the border into Canada where I moved to Hamilton, Ontario to attend McMaster University. At first, I chose to study Computer Science—given the websites I’d built and all the time I spent coding in high school, plus my general fascination with technology, it was the sensible choice. But it only took a couple of miserable semesters before I switched majors to English. Sometime around then, the writing bug stirred up in me, and I began writing fiction. I graduated in 2009 with a Bachelor’s in English. They didn’t really teach me much fiction—that came later. I wrote a whole lot of essays about a whole lot of books and plays, and I read widely.
After I graduated, I spent the next three years traveling Europe and Asia: Germany, mostly, but also Turkey, Scotland, Spain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and India. I brushed up on my Spanish, and learned a little German. I waited tables most of this time, but also became obsessed with rock climbing. I spent a lot of time climbing the sandstone towers of the Pfälzerwald (Palatinate Forest) in Germany. Meanwhile, I did a few freelance writing projects—some PR stuff for a tours company, a few articles for English-language newspapers, that sort of thing. I tried the fiction, but man was I bad at it.
By 2012, I had realized that I was ready to get serious about this whole writing thing. I returned to the United States and moved to Austin, TX to become a full-time freelance writer. In a little detour, I became a project manager at a web design agency. In my role there, I managed over $1 million in digital projects in 3 years and spoke at SXSW Interactive. Now I’m out on my own, as a freelance content strategist. Most days, I spend my mornings writing novels, and in the afternoon consult with tech startups and small businesses on writing, editing, and marketing.
Sometime in there I figured out how to finish a story, and started a couple novels.
In the fall of 2015, M.G. Herron was born. I self-published my first novel, The Auriga Project, a sci-fi thriller about a brilliant engineer who builds a translocator and then loses his wife in it.
A few months later, I published Scrivener Superpowers, a how-to for writers, which spent a few week on Amazon’s nonfiction bestseller charts.
My second novel, another sci-fi thriller in a different world is called Tales of the Republic. That came out this year (It’s May 2017 as I write this.)
I have plans for several short stories and at least one more novel this year.
In Austin, I occasionally put together events for local writers through the Indie Author Society, an organization for indie authors that I started on Meetup.com.
Podcast interviews
I’ve had the pleasure of being interviews on a few podcasts. Check out the links here:
Matt Herron on The Author Stories Podcast
Writer’s Workshop with Matt Herron and Michael Bunker on The Author Stories Podcast
Get in touch
Follow me or get in touch on your favorite social network. I’m on…
Twitter: @mgherron
Facebook: facebook.com/mgherronauthor
Newsletter: Sign up here →
Email: matt@mgherron.com
