Matthew Simmons

My full name is Matthew James Alexander Simmons. I was born Heather Joy Simmons on December 17th, 1984. I was born at Middlesex Hospital in Middletown, Connecticut. I started to draw and create little art projects at the age of 3. I was able to participate in the town wide K-12 student art show hosted by Wesleyan University when I was in kindergarten and every year after that until I finally graduated my senior year in high school. I have always loved the arts. All of them. I consider myself to be a modern day Renaissance man. I love to draw (pencil, colored pencil, marker, ink), paint (acrylic, oil, watercolor), sculpt (clay, wire, wood), write (poetry, plays, short stories, character sketches), act, and participate in technical theater (sound design, deck crew, fly operator, scenery building, costume design, stage management). I started writing in high school. I also spent my junior and senior years of high school attending the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts in Hartford, Connecticut. I was a Theater Design and Production Major there. After high school, I went to Philadelphia and attended the University of the Arts and became a Graphic Design Major. But after 3 semesters I decided that Graphic Design wasn't for me so I switched to Applied Theater Arts for a semester. But mounting medical bills without proper health insurance forced me to move back to Connecticut. I spent the next two years attending the University of Connecticut as a Theater Studies Major with a concentration in Stage Management. While attending UConn, I was Assistant Stage Manager for a puppet show and Stage Manager for a Student run show. Unfortunately, a late diagnosis of mental illness including a hospitalization forced me to leave UConn and move back home. I then started going to Middlesex Community College where I was a Fine Arts Major. But it wasn't long before my mental illness got the better of me and I was forced to leave school again. But this time, I didn't go back. So after 5 years of college, I couldn't get a degree. I ended up leaving home and moving in with a friend and her family who I later adopted. During this time, I continued to create art. It was my own form of therapy. I was able to eventually find my own place and slowly get my life back on track. After a few years, I fell in love with Amy Dustan Miller who I later married on Halloween 2015. She helped motivate me to finish my first book which is a project I started back in 2005. The book is supposed to inspire people to make lemonade out of life's lemons. In my life I have faced many hardships. I faced addiction (pain killers, alcohol, marijuana), mental illnesses, physical illnesses, homelessness, hospitalizations (medical and psychological), death (family and friends alike), among other things. I have also been on a special type of journey. From my assigned gender at birth (female) to my current gender (male). Being transgender is not easy by any means. I have to deal with a lot of discrimination as a result. But I truly believe I can inspire everyone (not just those in the LGBT community) to follow their dreams despite of what other people say they can or cannot do. I have since published an art book titled Animus, a LGBT play called Forever a Tomboy, an adult coloring book titled Dragons: An Adult Coloring Book, and I also illustrated a children's book titled the Quest for Piggy Jon. I also have taught myself bookbinding as a hobby as well as puppet making.