Writer for Young Adults
I had my very first author visit yesterday! The wonderful fourth grade at The Learning Community Charter School in Central Falls, RI, hosted me to talk about how I write book reviews. They'd read my August review of Passenger in preparation to write their own reviews, and they asked fantastic questions about writing, reading, and inspiration. I shared...… Continue reading Author Visit!
Today I stood in line outside a coffee shop for an hour, wearing Blueberry in our Ergobaby carrier, bouncing back and forth to help her sleep. The payoff? A plain cup of coffee in a paper cup printed with a quotation from the upcoming Gilmore Girls miniseries, and a paper sleeve printed with the Luke's diner logo. Not… Continue reading Paper Coffee Cups and Seeing Yourself in Stories
Josh is a HUGE fantasy fan. As in, we call the books he reads "brick-a-books" (because they're all doorstoppers). As in, he's keeping a list of all the series he's in the middle of (because the writers take an understandably long time to finish the next installments of said brick-a-book series). So now that I'm working on… Continue reading Lessons in Fantasy World-Building: Introducing the Magic
In July I wrote about how I research for historical fiction projects, using my latest WIP, a historical fantasy, as an example. One of the biggest things on my mind is efficiency, especially with a new baby. I want my research to double as story planning so I can construct an outline for my book as… Continue reading How I Balance Planning and Research
Passenger by Alexandra Bracken Disney-Hyperion, January 2016 Genre: YA, Historical Fiction, Historical Fantasy (Time Travel) Passage, n. i. A brief section of music composed of a series of notes and flourishes. ii. A journey by water; a voyage. iii. The transition from one place to another, across space and time. In one devastating night, violin… Continue reading Book Review: Passenger by Alexandra Bracken
We are still waiting on that baby over here. Meanwhile, I'm scrambling to fit in as much work on my new WIP as I can before she arrives (while taking breaks to catch up on the latest season of Sad Detectives, a.k.a. Endeavour). This project is a YA historical fantasy, which means I get to indulge… Continue reading How I Research
Thank you for all your good wishes on my last post! It's been a whirlwind around here, full of classes and rearranging furniture and counting down the last few weeks before school. And I'm suddenly realizing that we only have 7 (7!) weeks left before the baby's due date. So while we've been accumulating books… Continue reading Sad Detectives
The book situation in our house has always been a bit...precarious, mostly thanks to my habit of acquiring more books than our shelves can hold. Josh keeps books, too, but he's much better about borrowing from the library and only holding onto those he receives as gifts. No, the problem is mainly due to me. There's… Continue reading Building a Little Library
A Tyranny of Petticoats: 15 Stories of Belles, Bank Robbers & Other Badass Girls edited by Jessica Spotswood Candlewick Press, March 2016 Genre: YA, Historical Fiction (with some Fantasy) From an impressive sisterhood of YA writers comes an edge-of-your-seat anthology of historical fiction and fantasy featuring a diverse array of daring heroines. Criss-cross America — on… Continue reading Book Review: A Tyranny of Petticoats edited by Jessica Spotswood
Or: The Dark Side. Or: The Crusades as Fought by Hunksome Orlando Bloom. Last week I wrote about my admiration for the Masterpiece drama Indian Summers and the way the writers create ambiguous characters while staying fairly true to history. As we were finishing up the show's season finale, I happened to be watching a very… Continue reading When You’re On the Wrong Side of History (Part 2)
Abby Murphy 