Matthue Roth

After graduation, Roth remained in Washington, D.C. and worked as a sociological trend consultant, but was unsatisfied with his social life there and "desperately wanted to get out."[1][3] After a friend gave him a copy of the novel Valencia by author Michelle Tea, Roth found himself drawn to the book's portrayal of San Francisco's subculture and moved to the city, where he lived from 2001 to 2004.[3][4]

While living in San Francisco, Roth met up with Tea and other former Sister Spit members and began performing poetry and spoken word at local clubs.[1][3] During the 2000s, he performed at the Intersection for the Arts with Tea, Dave Eggers, and Beth Lisick;[5][6] at a Chabad menorah lighting event at Justin Herman Plaza with Shlomo Katz and Carlos Santana;[7] the Daniland Talent Showcase alongside the Suicide Kings, Sini Anderson, Carlos Mena, and Aya de Leon;[1] and a 2002 Broadway production of Def Poetry Jam.[1][6] He also performed at Solomon Schechter High School of New York[6] and at the Hillel House of Pennsylvania State University.[8]

In 2009, Roth and rapper Mista Cookie Jar formed the nerdcore hip hop duo Chibi Vision. They debuted with The Chanukah Mini-EP and announced a full-length album, The Elements of Style, shortly afterward. They were featured on a 2011 segment of The Henry Rollins Show on KCRW.[9]

In 2005, Cleis Press published Roth's first full-length book, the memoir Yom Kippur a Go-Go, named for a zine he had written three years prior. Jason Diamond of Flavorwire later described it as "striking a balance between [Roth's] old-time religious beliefs and modern-world interests, from poetry to hip hop.".[10]

That same year, Roth published his first young adult novel, Never Mind the Goldbergs, through Scholastic's PUSH imprint. While the book was written in six months, it took two years to edit, and Roth encountered difficulty finding a publisher for the book due to its unusual tone and subject matter.[4] Upon release, the book garnered mixed reception[4] but received the American Library Association Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults award and the New York Public Library Best Book for the Teen Age award.[11] A release party was held on January 20, 2005 at La Tazza 108 in Philadelphia with musical performances by Juez and E.D. Sedgwick.[12] Roth subsequently published two more young adult novels, Candy in Action in 2007 and Losers in 2008, on PUSH and Soft Skull Press, respectively.

Roth published his first children's book with My First Kafka: Runaways, Rodents, and Giant Bugs, released on June 15, 2013. Illustrated by Rohan Daniel Eason, the book reinterprets the works of Franz Kafka for a child audience, specifically "The Metamorphosis", "Josephine the Singer, or The Mouse Folk", and "Excursion into the Mountains" from Contemplation. Roth conceived of the project while reading "Jackals and Arabs" to his two young daughters.[13] He and Eason re-teamed the following year for The Gobblings, about a lonely boy on a space station who must defeat a race of metal-eating monsters.[14]

Prior to 2015, Roth was a lead writer and developer of educational software games for the company Amplify.[15] He was one of several of Amplify employees laid off after its sale by parent company News Corp in 2015.[16][17]

In 2012, Roth and producer Sarah Lefton co-founded the website and production company G-dcast (later renamed BimBam), having been developing the idea since meeting in San Francisco in 2005. The website produced short animated video content based on the weekly parsha, stories from the Talmud, and other parts of the Torah, with the goal of educating children and others learning about Judaism.[18][2] In addition to his role as co-founder, Roth scripted and edited several videos for the site. BimBam was shut down in April 2019 due to lack of funding.[19]

Roth and activist/blogger Elad Nehorai co-founded the website Hevria in mid-2014. The site's name is a portmanteau of the Hebrew words "chevra" (group or society) and "briah" (creation). Primarily a group blog centered around essays about Judaism and art, the site also features "Hevria Sessions", studio performances by Jewish musicians, and, since March 2017, an official podcast entitled HevriaCast, where Nehorai interviews various Jewish artists, writers, and musicians. Roth and Nehorai conceived of the project during an email conversation in 2012 with writer Chaya Kurtz, who had gotten attention for an xoJane article entitled "What Women's Media Needs to Know About Chassidic Women"; the three theorized that a full website could give even more insight into Hasidic Jews, and Nehorai subsequently recruited other blogging contacts to participate.[3]

Roth wrote the screenplay for the independent film 1/20 (2010), a coming-of-age story centered around punk rock and the 2008 presidential election and featuring music from the punk bands Against Me![20] and Can Can, among others. Roth, who had not done any prior screenwriting, was hired by the producers on the strength of Never Mind the Goldbergs and partially based the story on his time living in Washington, D.C..[21] Directed by Gerardo del Castillo Ramirez, the movie was primarily shot in Queens, Manhattan, and Monsey, and finished filming in November 2009.[21] Upon release, the movie was screened at the Detroit Windsor International Film Festival,[20] the Mexico International Film Festival (where it won the Bronze Palm),[22] the Guadalajara International Film Festival,[23] and Indie Fest, where it won an Award of Merit.

• The Chanukah Mini-EP (2009)

• Yom Kippur a Go-Go (2005, Cleis Press)
• Automatic (2011, independent)

• My First Kafka: Runaways, Rodents, and Giant Bugs (2013)
• The Gobblings (2014)

• Never Mind the Goldbergs (2005, PUSH)
• Candy in Action (2007, Soft Skull Press)
• Losers (2008, PUSH)
• Rules of My Best Friend's Body (2017, self-published)

• Bellybudding: Post-It Note Poems (2001)
• Platonic (2001)
• Yom Kippur a Go-Go (2002)
• Sometimes I Throw Stuff At This House (2004)

• Bottoms Up: Writing About Sex (2004) (edited by Diana Cage) (Poem: "Waiting for the Man")
• Homewrecker: An Adultery Reader (2005) (edited by Daphne Gottlieb) (Short story: "Beating Around the Burning Bush")
• This Is PUSH: New Stories from the Edge (2007) (edited by David Levithan) (Short story: "The Waitress")
• Democrat's Soul: A Tried-and-True View of Everything Blue (2008) (Short story: "The Only Living Democrat in Brooklyn")
• The Autobiographer's Handbook: The 826 National Guide to Writing Your Memoir (2008) (edited by Jennifer Traig)
• Don't Forget to Write (2011) (edited by Jennifer Traig and Dave Eggers) (Essay: "Word Karaoke: Become a Hip-Hop Lyrical Genius")
• Truth & Dare: 20 Tales of Heartbreak and Happiness (2011) (edited by Liz Miles) (Short story: "Girl Jesus on the Inbound Subway")
• Cornered: 14 Stories of Bullying and Defiance (2012) (edited by Rhoda Belleza) (Short story: "The Ambush")
• Jews vs Aliens (2015) (edited by Lavie Tidhar and Rebecca Levene) (Short story: "The Ghetto")