Welcome to Elise Murphy's Website

I have been a fiction writer since I could hold a pencil. When I grew up (a bit), I decided it was far more efficient to move away from the wide lined paper of my youth and switch to a very sleek black Mac laptop. The hand bound, self illustrated, five page "novels" of my grade school years have, under the auspices of modern technology, grown to full length novels--and they are even typed!

As most authors will tell you, I've held a series of sometimes interesting and too often boring jobs that have nothing to do with writing. I've been a prep cook at a pizza chain, a chef in a Japanese / Northwest fusion restaurant, an importer of Chinese antiques, a drugstore shelf stocker, a barista (this is the Northwest after all), a copy writer, and a mom (the last one seems to be ongoing, underpaid, and my co-workers are often rude and unappreciative of my work--but they do seem to love me).

Writing has been the thing I do in between doing everything else. In many ways, we authors are blessed in that we get to lead multiple "real" lives and countless imaginary ones. But, I think most writers will tell you, while we're doing all those other things, we long to be writing--there is always a little corner of our minds tumbling ideas, grasping pitch perfect phrases, and toiling through new landscapes. I guess that's what makes us a little spacey, a bit too knowledgeable of obscure facts, and frequently off topic.