Location: United States
Member Since: Nov. 10, 2010

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Margaret C. Murray

Biography

Margaret Murray was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and graduated from Carnegie-Mellon University and Hunter College. She attended the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center on an American Federation of the Arts fellowship and the Squaw Valley Screenwriters Conference on a National Endowment for the Arts grant. A writer and teacher, she has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for over thirty years, and is the mother of three children and grandmother too.

Smashwords Interview

What motivated you to become an indie author?
Why did I launch WriteWords Press? Simply put, I was ready. I have been writing for decades, since I was eight and read The Boxcar Children. .I had studied the great works of English and American literature as an undergraduate and graduate English major and revere the art of fiction writing as a way of seeing beyond ourselves, into the meaning of our lives. I'm addicted to good stories. What's more, I was sick and tired of hoping I’d write the perfect query letter to the understanding agent with a penchant for taking a chance. The truth is I HAD that agent decades ago, a famous agent from New York City who backed off after awhile. No, I was not going to wait any more.
What are your five favorite books, and why?
My five favorite books are those I have yet to read which will inspire me to be the writer I love to be, books that will open me up to the magic, mystery and wonder of life. Examples of books that inspired me include: Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky and The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, both of which I adored as a teenager; Dear Life by Alice Munro which I just taught in my From Heart to Paper Writing Workshop, Mercy by Tony Morrison, Atonement by Ian McEwan and Where the Crow Flies by Ann-Marie MacDonald.
Read more of this interview.

Where to find Margaret C. Murray online

Website: http://writewordspress.com
Twitter: @writewordspress
Facebook: Facebook profile
Blog: http://writewordspress.com

Where to buy in print

http://www.laurelbookstore.com/

Books

Pillow Prayers, Love ruined, love reborn after the Summer of Love by
Price: $2.99 USD. Words: 80,880. Language: English. Published: May 30, 2019 . Categories: Fiction » Historical » USA, Fiction » Women's fiction » Feminist
Hedonistically delightful, full of breathtaking exuberance, Pillow Prayers is set in San Francisco after the Summer of Love. At its center is sexy Beth, owner of a zen pillow stitchery, for whom life appears to be a hop, skip and a prayer on a psychedelic bus. Who could know she sews her pillows while maneuvering toward tragedy?
Spiral by
Price: $2.99 USD. Words: 102,180. Language: English. Published: October 12, 2015 . Categories: Fiction » Inspirational, Fiction » Cultural & ethnic themes » Hispanic & Latino
Spiral, a novel of magic realism and epic adventure in the ancient American Southwest. At the end of a culture that built structures as big as the Roman Coliseum when medieval Europe was still in the Dark Ages, on a high desert landscape of brooding wind and dark storm clouds that never drop rain, the Elders threaten to sacrifice an infant boy to placate the sun dagger and thus end the drought.
Dreamers by
Price: $2.99 USD. Words: 113,560. Language: English. Published: May 3, 2012 . Categories: Fiction » Coming of age
It’s the 1960s at the height of the Civil Rights showdown in racist America. Black street-savvy Thomas, desperate for stardom, meets White music student, Annie, desperate for love.
Sundagger.net by
Price: $2.99 USD. Words: 123,730. Language: English. Published: October 6, 2011 . Categories: Fiction » Cultural & ethnic themes » Cultural interest, general, Fiction » Visionary & metaphysical
In Sundagger.net, an unsuspecting Sara McClelland cannot know her hi-tech life is about to collide with an ancient tragedy. Burnt out from her job, haunted by the disappearance of her son, she finds unexpected mystery when she crawls into a sweat lodge. In the hot stones of the Indian lodge, Sara is overcome by a vision of a Native American family who leads her to her own.

Margaret C. Murray's tag cloud

anasazi ruins    berkeley    black    black panthers    catholic    civil rights    cyberspace    dad    drugs    father    free speech    hippy    hippy culture    historic thriller    historical archeology    hitech    homewood    interracial    irish    journey adventure    love about    love and longing    magic realism    martin luther king jr    mother love    mozart    mystery    mystery and magic    native american    negro    new york city    othello    pittsburgh    prehistorical fiction    reincarnation fiction    riots    romance    san francisco    san francisco bay area    searching for family and love    segregation    silicon valley    southwest    southwest indian    summer of love    violin    women and empowerment    zen   

Smashwords book reviews by Margaret C. Murray

  • Floating Point on Dec. 16, 2010

    Floating Point seduced me into a world I yearn for, akin to the 60s "where the good guys were winning," which is how the author, Shelley Buck, feels on her way to purchase a $15,000 boat with her husband and berth it in the San Francisco Bay. They need to solve a looming dilemma--how to live and work in Silicon Valley, a dilemma I share. This memoir has all the lure of the Bay Area, with compelling, quirky characters written with a precise, biting, funny, meticulously-crafted viewpoint. The painstaking observations of how boats and other things work is matched and contrasted with the sensitive, self-critical bent of the narrator who solves her own dilemma while the boat endlessly rocks. Reading this book is a delight--and a journey into the dark waters of our present time.