Authors to watch in 2010: Tamsyn Murray

I haven’t always wanted to be a writer. When I was four, I wanted to be Princess Leia from Star Wars when I grew up, but only if I got to marry Luke Skywalker – I was totally disgusted when I found out they were brother and sister. At the age of six, I decided I’d like to be a vet, until I realised it wasn’t all cute kittens and fluffy bunnies. In fact, over the years I’ve tried all sorts of jobs, from fruit picking to burger flipping, but it wasn’t until 2008 that I realised suddenly everything I’d done before was just research for my real career – writing.

I started off this new career by writing a short story. It was about a woman planning to murder her husband for snoring (can you guess where the inspiration for that came from?) and it was funny for all the wrong reasons. But the more I wrote, the better I got so that by the time I tried my hand at writing my first novel, titled My So-Called Afterlife, I sort of knew what I was doing and some of the comedy was actually intentional. Someone else thought so, too, because before I knew it I had an agent and then a publishing deal. I’m still pinching myself over that.

My So-Called Afterlife tells the story of Lucy Shaw, a fifteen year old ghost trapped in the men’s toilets on Carnaby Street in London. It isn’t until a lighting engineer called Jeremy walks in and she realises he can see her that things start looking for Lucy. Once he helps her find a way out of the loo, she discovers that there’s a whole afterlife waiting to be explored. Together with her new best friend, Hep, and the divinely snoggable Ryan, Lucy tracks down her killer. But she also finds that catching him comes with a hefty price. Will the ultimate cost of closure be more than Lucy is willing to pay?

My So-Called Afterlife will be available from 26th February 2010 you can read the first chapter here: http://tinyurl.com/yefgk6u . You can find out more about me at www.tamsynmurray.co.uk

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