Welcome to Rumble Strip Vermont. This is Erica Heilman.

Are you recording already?

Yeah, I'm already recording. Oh, well, it's kind of like when the nurse, you know.

That's right, you can get the shot.

Right, wait, have you already given me the shot?

Yeah, it you already given me the shot?

Yeah, it's already over.

That's Tobin Anderson, or M.T. Anderson,

as he's known on the covers of his books.

Anderson is the author of Feed,

winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize,

as well as The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing,

which won the National Book Award.

Whether it's crafting a dystopian future,

writing vampire fiction,

or in the case of his latest book,

chronicling the life of composer Dimitri Shostakovich

and the Siege of Leningrad, his books are meticulous. of composer

and the Siege of Leningrad, his books are meticulously researched

and always vividly told.

I first met Tobin when he came over with my friend Peter this past September to watch the

eclipse. The three of us sat in my front yard in an old wicker couch until it collapsed and the

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