about the author

Debra Mur­phy was raised in Cham­paign, IL and received her B.A. in His­tory at the Uni­ver­sity of Illi­nois. She met her hus­band, Daniel, while on a study year abroad in Aus­tria. Though her ambi­tion from her teenage years was to write fic­tion, Debra’s first pri­or­ity was moth­er­ing a grow­ing fam­ily, and she didn’t start writ­ing in earnest until her late thir­ties. Debra’s first short story, “Yard­sticks,” won the 1998 Kay Snow award spon­sored by Willamette Writ­ers, and was pub­lished in the Win­ter issue (no. 37) of Image.

Debra’s debut novel, The Mys­tery of Things, a mystery-thriller with Catholic and lit­er­ary themes, was pub­lished in Decem­ber 2004 by Idylls Press, the small press started by Debra with the mis­sion of “pub­lish­ing the Catholic imag­i­na­tion.” The Mys­tery of Things is the first novel in Debra’s planned Ash­land Grail Cycle. Debra is work­ing on the sec­ond book in the series, All the World’s a Stage, as well as a “cozy” mys­tery set in Ash­land, a screen­play, and var­i­ous shorter essays.

In writ­ing The Mys­tery of Things, Debra has drawn on her life-long love of Shake­speare, mythopoeic lit­er­a­ture and mystery/suspense thrillers. An ear­lier draft of the novel was selected as one of the top ten final­ists in the 2000 Pacific North­west Writ­ers Asso­ci­a­tion fic­tion contest.

Debra is a con­tribut­ing edi­tor for God­spy, where she pub­lishes reviews and op-ed pieces on con­tem­po­rary faith and cul­ture. An avid movie­goer and Shake­speare fan, Debra is also also a film reviewer for bar­dola­try, a web­site devoted to Shakespeare-on-film and Catholic Film Reviews. Debra is also edi­tor of Catholic Fic­tiont and an e-mail newslet­ter called Quotes for Catholic Writ­ers. Her homepage/blog is at DebraMurphy.com.

A mem­ber of Willamette Writ­ers, Ore­gon Writ­ers Colony and Sisters-in-Crime, Debra lives in Ash­land, Ore­gon with her hus­band and six children.

Debra in print:

Fic­tion

• The Mys­tery of Things (novel, Idylls Press 2004)
• “Yard­sticks” (short story, Image Jour­nal no. 37, Win­ter 2002–2003)

Non-Fiction

• “The Martha and Mary of Par­ent­ing” (first pub­lished in the U.S. in the early ‘90s by the Daugh­ters of St. Paul in their Fam­ily mag­a­zine, then reprinted in the April 1994 (vol. 15, NO. 3) issue of the British jour­nal, The Sower}
• “The Fam­ily, a Small Cir­cle of Love” (first pub­lished in—if Debra is remem­ber­ing correctly—The National Catholic Reg­is­ter in the early ‘90s.
• “Bush vs. Kerry: Hold­ing My Nose in Novem­ber,” (GodSpy, August 2004)
• “Pretty as a Pic­ture: a Review of Thérèse” (God­spy, Decem­ber 2004)
• “Wrestling with the Angel of Strange­ness: The Pas­sion of the Christ one year later” (God­spy, March 2005)
• “John Paul the Great, the Mis­un­der­stood Pope” (God­spy, April 2005)
• “Crack­ing Shakespeare’s Catholic Code: an Inter­view with Claire Asquith” (God­spy, Novem­ber 2005)
• “Mel Gib­son: Signs and Con­tra­dic­tions” (God­spy, Decem­ber 2006)
• “A Chris­t­ian Looks at the Fic­tion of Ian McE­wan” (Issue 10, 2008, of Sec­ond Spring Jour­nal, and reprinted online at Catholic Exchange)

Q & A with Debra about The Mys­tery of Things
visit Debra’s home­page
Debra on Face­book
Fol­low Debra Mur­phy on Twit­ter