Welcome to Debra Murphy’s homepage
Jan 16th, 2007 by Debra
Welcome to my homepage! The header image—which, by the way, is a photo I took in Fall 2006–is a grove of London plane trees in Lithia Park, Ashland Oregon, the home of the Oregon Shakespeare festival and one of my favorite places in the world. In fact, I (and my family) love it so much we will soon be living there. It will also be the site of several future novels of mine.
Speaking of websites, we’ve been working hard on upgrading all of them in the Idylls Press family. I’ve even (just for fun, to connect with folks with similar interests) put up a MySpace page. In the process, I’ve already re-connected with an old friend and fellow Shakespeare-fan from the Midwest, so I’m already glad I decided to try it.
My most recent article, an op ed piece on the Mel Gibson controversy (version 2.0, one might almost say) is on Godspy: "Signs and Contradictions: The Mad Mel Mess and Why (or if) it Matters." FYI, Godspy is undergoing a major re-vamp, and should be up and running again very very soon.
As for the rest of my novel-writing career, it’s a bit on hold while I get Idylls Press on a solid footing. However, keep my writing muscles limber by blogging and book reviewing and op-ed-ing.) I hate to order my priorities in such a fashion, since fiction is my first love, but my publishing experience these last couple of years has persuaded me that no serious Catholic novelist (who also likes to write serious novels with overtly Catholic themes) should be naive enough to think it’s an easy go. There are many reasons for this, and by no means all of them have to do with the so-called Culture War—a term I loathe.
But that’s a tale for another time and place. Suffice it to say that I’m focusing for the moment on the publishing end of things, and praying, hard, for a new Catholic literary revival. We have a glorious literary patrimony, but with a few notable exceptions we have been underrepresented, relative to our numbers.
In the meantime, to find out more about The Mystery of Things, visit the book’s website. It recently got a generous review from Stratford Caldecott, author of a number of wonderful books, and editor of Second Spring.
And don’t forget to visit the home page of Idylls Press, which specializes in quality Catholic fiction, both new and "classic". I firmly believe, as small as we are, that we are publishing books that will still be read a century from now.
Dear Ms. Murphy,
I want to thank you in advance for taking the time to read this synopsis. I would be more than happy to send you the manuscript upon your request.
In Beginning of The End: The Fall and Rise of a Grigori, the evolution of humanity has been entrusted to Alistar, on of the giant race of Grigori angels. But he has come to covet creation and has fallen from grace. For millennia he has been evolving humankind for his own wicked purposes and has developed even greater plans to step outside time and space and rule the heavens. Now it is up to one good Grigori angel and two humans with supernatural abilities, including the heroine of the book Rosie, to thwart Alistar’s evil desires.
Beginning of The End: The Fall and Rise of a Grigori is a supernatural thriller of 80,000 words that I have been writing over the past two years. I have always had an interest in writing, attempting my first full-length novel as a fifteen-year-old, but have yet to be published.
Once again, thank you for your time.
Warmest Regards,
Russ Lattime
26582 Sinforosa Drive
Mission Viejo, California 92691
RussL@cox.net (949)768-4053