Matt Hirsch attempted to grow up in the suburbs of Chicago. He spent the next 17 years playing in northern Wisconsin with his wife and two kids. In August of 2017 he chased a dream and moved west to the Olympic Peninsula where he now spends his time writing checks, hall passes, and the occasional novel.  Teaching budding writers drives him to sing, dance, and draw terrible horses.   Luckily his students appreciate his strange approach and animated explanations.  They sometimes even learn a thing or two in ninth grade English. When not teaching or writing, Matt pretends he can walk on water. Luckily, his paddle board plays along. Matt has spent his life writing poetry, sarcastic meeting notes, and a short-story or two.  He threatened to write a novel some day.  In 2016, he finally made good on his promise.

Biography

PErsonal Life

Matt married in 2000 and has two children.  When he is not writing, he spends his time kayaking, paddle boarding, hiking, cross-country skiing, or biking. If he is not moving, he is writing.

Schooling

1996 Glenbrook North High School graduate
2000 Gustavus Adolpuhus - B.A. in Psychology
2005 University of Wisconsin - Superior - B.S. Secondary English Education

Career

Matt spent his first years trying to adult as a customer service representative at a company that built websites.  Eventually he realized the job could not sustain his brain.  After some hemming and hawing, his friends and relatives pushed him to pursue teaching the future leaders of the world, teenagers.  Walking into his first job in Drummond, Wisconsin, he quickly realized this was a job unlike anything else.  And it was awesome.  He has been in the classroom guiding middle school and high school students with his goofy antics since 2005.  

His students work through writing and literature in many ways.  His brother, a prosecutor, helped him build a mock trial case that put Jack on trial for the murder of Piggy in Lord of the Flies.  His students explore the research process with him and come away with a greater sense of how messy and exhilarating writing can be.  His current obsession is reading and writing workshops.  The greatest moments in his classroom are when students look at the final product for a unit and realize they did it.

Writing

As soon as Matt could hold a pencil, he began to create.  He has written poetry as long as he can remember. He has also written short stories and created comics along the way.  His students kept telling him he should write a book.  In the back of his mind, he had been pestered by this magical world that needed to escape.  With life experiences finally catching up to his ambitions, he sat down and started writing a series of novels.  He intends to get these published in order to share them with the world.  After a lot of research, he realized this may be a long process, but he has no choice.  Ed and the other characters in this series are tenacious. Matt has challenged himself to blog about his writing to keep it fresh.  He has cultivated those posts and edited them to make them appropriate for a younger audience. He intends to post these musings on the blog page of this website.