Yxta Maya Murray | |
---|---|
Born | 1970 (age 53–54) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
Occupation |
|
Education | |
Period | 1997–present |
Notable awards | Whiting Award (1999) Harvard Radcliffe Fellow 2024-2025, https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/people/yxta-maya-murray Art Writers Grant 2018,Contentshttps://www.artswriters.org/grant/grantees/grantee/yxta_murray |
Yxta Maya Murray (born 1970) is an American Latina novelist and professor at Loyola Marymount School of Law. [1]
Murray graduated cum laude from the University of California, Los Angeles and received her JD from Stanford University with distinction. She teaches at Loyola Law School. [2]
Her writing has appeared in Buzz,Glamour, and ZYZZYVA, [3] and her novel "The Conquest" won the 1999 Whiting Award. [4]
Locas - "Murray perfectly captures the patois and fury of the Mexican women..." and "The reader equipped with a Spanish-English dictionary has the best chance to grasp all the nuances of this convincing, under-the-skin work.", [5] "It's that predictable both in plot and texture." and "A female Scarface, this straightforward narrative charts the rise and fall of Latin gangsters on L.A.'s mean streets with considerable documentary fervor but not much depth.", [6] "Even if Locas is as persuasive and true-sounding as a smart documentary, Murray keeps her novel as tight as her main character keeps her mind..." [7]
What it Takes to Get to Vegas - "The suffering hero, the bullet in the gut, come to think of it, this does sound like The Natural, doesn't it? But the boxing story works, told to us by a femme fatale for whom we can feel much sympathy.", [8] "uneven but arresting" and "Readable and intelligent, though this writer of promise and ferocious energy needs to scrutinize her subject matter a little more deeply." [9]
The Conquest - "Another ponderous and trendy novel from Murray..." and "A fluid and genuinely interesting story badly weighed down by leaden prose ... and a thoroughly hackneyed view of Latin American history.", [10] "The subplot about Sara's literary sleuthing ties the two stories neatly together and gives the book a satisfying edge of suspense." [11]
The Queen Jade - "Fiery beauties and rakish hunks can't enliven this overblown melodrama.", [12] "These entertaining characters are all sharply drawn, and the depiction of the teeming jungle is breathtaking. But Murray is less successful at conveying the mythos of the Queen Jade and the history of its pursuit." [13]
The King's Gold: An Old World Novel of Adventure - "In heroine Sanchez, Murray has created a perfect counterweight to the traditional macho hero." [14]
The Good Girl's Guide To Getting Kidnapped - " This may not be great literature, but it holds strong appeal for teens who can't get enough street lit.", [15] "This fast-paced story, heavy with street dialogue and slang, should have ample teen appeal." [16]
The World Doesn't Work That Way, but It Could (U Nevada Press, 2020), called a "force of nature" by Story Circle Network, https://www.storycircle.org/book_review/the-world-doesnt-work-that-way-but-it-could/
God Went Like That (Curbstone/Northwestern 2023): PW: "Murray shines with this ambitious project." https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-8101-4602-0
We Make Each Other Beautiful: Art, Activism and the Law (Cornell 2024). Los Angeles Review of Books: "In this groundbreaking book, Murray ushers in a new era of legal and artistic production, to the benefit of both." https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/rejoice-artists-and-lawyers-at-the-mutual-goal-of-art-and-law-on-yxta-maya-murrays-we-make-each-other-beautiful/
Her short story Paradise was first published in The Southern Review in 2020 and subsequently included in The Best American Short Stories 2021.
Dare Wright was a Canadian–American children's author, model, and photographer. She is best known for her 1957 children's book, The Lonely Doll.
Elizabeth Fama is a young adult author, best known for her book Monstrous Beauty, a fantasy novel for teens. Her fifth publication was Plus One, which published in April 2014.
I'm Not Who You Think I Am is an American novel for young adults by Peg Kehret, published in 1999.
The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm is a children's science fiction novel by American writer Nancy Farmer. It was awarded a Newbery Honor. The novel is set in Zimbabwe in the year 2194, with a strong theme of Afrofuturism.
Kira-Kira is a young adult novel by Cynthia Kadohata. It received the Newbery Medal for children's literature in 2005. The book's plot is about a Japanese-American family living in Georgia. The main character and narrator of the story is a girl named Katie Takeshima, the middle child in a Japanese-American family. "Kira-Kira" means glittering or shining.
East is a 2003 young adult novel by Edith Pattou. It is an adaptation of an old Norwegian folk tale entitled "East of the Sun and West of the Moon" and was a 2003 ALA Top Ten Best Book for Young Adults. West, a sequel to East, was published in October 2018.
Carol Elizabeth Fenner was an American children's writer.
Behind the Curtain is the second book in the Echo Falls mystery series by best-selling crime novelist Peter Abrahams.
Elizabeth Scott is an American author of young adult novels.
Carolyn Coman is an American writer best known for children's books. Her novels What Jamie Saw (1995) and Many Stones (2000) were among the runners-up for major annual awards by the American Library Association (ALA) and the National Book Foundation.
Flip-Flop Girl is a 1994 children's novel written by American novelist Katherine Paterson.
Preacher’s Boy is a 1999 children's historical novel written by American novelist Katherine Paterson.
Claim to Fame is a novel by Margaret Peterson Haddix published by Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing in 2009.
Missing Angel Juan is the fourth book in the Dangerous Angels series by Francesca Lia Block. The plot revolves around Witch Baby as she travels to New York City to find her love Angel Juan and bring him back home to Los Angeles. It was adapted for the stage in 1996.
The Bridge to Never Land is a children's novel written by Ridley Pearson and Dave Barry and published by Disney-Hyperion in 2011. It is the fifth book in the Peter and the Starcatchers series but unlike the others is set in the present day. The main characters in the story are two young Americans, Aidan and Sarah Cooper.
Maggie and the Pirate is a 1979 children's picture book by American author and illustrator Ezra Jack Keats.
Adam and Eve and Pinch-Me is a young adult novel written by Julie Johnston and published in 1994 by Lester in Toronto. The book was awarded the Governor General's Award for Text in Children's Literature in 1994, the Ruth & Sylvia Schwartz Children's Book Award in 1995, and the Canadian Library Association Young Adult Book Award, also in 1995.
Huntley Fitzpatrick was an American author of young adult (YA) fiction.
Lucha Corpi is a Chicana poet and mystery writer. She was born on April 13, 1945, in Jaltipan, Veracruz, Mexico. In 1975, she earned a B.A. degree in comparative literature from the University of California, Berkeley. In 1979, she earned an M.A. in comparative literature from San Francisco State University. Corpi's most important contribution to Chicano literature, a series of four poems called "The Marina Poems", appeared in the anthology The Other Voice: Twentieth-Century Women's Poetry in Translation, which was published by W. W. Norton & Company, in 1976 (ISBN 9780393044218).
The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings is a 2003 memoir by Amy Tan. It is a collection of essays about her life, family, and influences.