Writer for Young Adults
Well, things got busy. We welcomed a new addition to our family, muscled through some major house infestation issues (with a five-week-old! super fun), and started preschool. And now *cough* it's December. Whoops. Still, I've managed to scrape out some precious reading time while nursing little Junebug, though not nearly as much as I did… Continue reading What to Read While Breastfeeding: A Primer
Invictus by Ryan Graudin Little, Brown, September 2017 Genre: YA, Historical Fiction, Historical Fantasy (Time Travel) Farway Gaius McCarthy was born outside of time. The son of a time traveler from 2354 AD and a gladiator living in ancient Rome, Far's very existence defies the laws of nature. All he's ever wanted was to explore history… Continue reading Book Review: Invictus by Ryan Graudin
Lately I've been nostalgic for books. It feels like forever and an age since I got to curl up on the couch and sink into a book, and so I've been pining for the days of new parenthood, when weirdly I read more consistently than I do now. Ah, for that twilight haze of chaos… Continue reading The Audio Files
The Pearl Thief by Elizabeth Wein Disney-Hyperion, May 2017 Genre: YA Historical Before Verity . . . there was Julie. When fifteen-year-old Julia Beaufort-Stuart wakes up in the hospital, she knows the lazy summer break she'd imagined won't be exactly what she anticipated. And once she returns to her grandfather's estate, a bit banged up… Continue reading Book Review: The Pearl Thief by Elizabeth Wein
After years of my sister telling me all about her favorite podcasts and me nodding and saying I'll listen to them but forgetting to look them up, I finally got into them. And by "them" I really mean one in particular: Witch, Please, a podcast about Harry Potter, radical feminism, and literary analysis. YES. Witch, Please… Continue reading A Podcast, You Say? Oh, Witch, Please!
We Were Liars by E. Lockhart Delacorte Press, May 2014 Genre: YA Contemporary, Suspense A beautiful and distinguished family. A private island. AÂ brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy. A group of four friends--the Liars--whose friendship turns destructive. A revolution. An accident. A secret. Lies upon lies. True love. The truth. We Were Liars is… Continue reading Book Review: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
Lately I've been indulging in an orgy of Sherlock. Not just the BBC show (although we recently finished the third episode of the latest season, and MAN was that dark), but books and radio dramas, too. Modern adaptations, stories that play the Game - I'm soaking it all up. Maybe it's due to the current political… Continue reading It’s Elementary
In September I wrote about Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn book, The Final Empire, and what it taught me about introducing a complex magic system in fiction. Today I want to examine how Sanderson builds his fantasy world. When you're devising a fantasy world, you're filled with so many ideas that it's so tempting to throw in everything but… Continue reading Lessons in Fantasy World-Building: Creating the Magical World
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!
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
Abby Murphy 