Abby Murphy
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Author Visit!
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… Continue reading
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Paper Coffee Cups and Seeing Yourself in Stories
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… Continue reading
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Lessons in Fantasy World-Building: Introducing the Magic
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… Continue reading
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How I Balance Planning and Research
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… Continue reading
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Book Review: Passenger by Alexandra Bracken
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… Continue reading
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How I Research
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,… Continue reading
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Sad Detectives
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… Continue reading
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Building a Little Library
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… Continue reading
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Book Review: A Tyranny of Petticoats edited by Jessica Spotswood
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… Continue reading
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When You’re On the Wrong Side of History (Part 2)
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… Continue reading
Abby Murphy 