Matthew B. Johnson was born in Sacramento, California. From an early age, his mom (an English teacher) instilled in him a love of reading and stories. She always made sure he had plenty of books to read. She also made him spend his summer breaks completing math and English workbooks and refused to buy him a Nintendo, something about which he still complains.

In retrospect, however, his mom did the best thing for him. He read voraciously as a child and found stories and authors he still loves to this day. Books are still some of his most treasured things and his favorite gifts to receive.

Matthew found his love of writing early on, often staying up late on school night to scribble short stories, screenplays, and attempts at novels.

None of these were any good.

His rough initial attempt at college saw his study as a biology major. After failing chemistry three times, he switched to studying economics. After failing accounting twice, along with several other classes, he was unceremoniously booted from the realm of academia due to his abysmally low GPA.

His life underwent a forceful change in direction when he broke his neck in a diving accident in July of 2005, shattering his C-5 vertebra and becoming a quadriplegic. During the years of rehabilitation that followed, he learned two things: how to function independently without the use of his legs or fine motor skills in his hands, and that he wanted to be a writer when he grew up.

With new found direction, he began pursuing writing in earnest.

He took writing classes at his local community college. He earned his BA in English Literature with a minor in Creative Writing from the University of Arizona (Bear down, Wildcats!). He earned his master’s degree in English Literature from Mills College. His writing went from bad, to passable, to readable, to good, to publishable.

He’s come a long way from “were you drunk when you wrote this?”

He’s currently shopping around his debut novel, Sol 2254: The Furies of Mars, the first book in a science-fiction series set in the not-so-distant future which he describes as 2001: A Space Odyssey meets The Sopranos meets The Punisher.

He lives in the greater Sacramento area where he coaches high school track, drinks an unhealthy amount of coffee, and dreams of making a living as a writer, mostly because it’s a job he can do sitting down.