Martine Murray
Martine Murray, a native and a current resident of Melbourne, Australia, is an accomplished author with a variety of other talents and interests. She has studied film making at Prahan College, painting at the Victorian College of the Arts, and movement and dance at Melbourne University. She began writing as a method of keeping track of all of her activities. She explains, “I was writing in journals a lot while I was in art school. I also used to write on my canvasses or write on etchings and make tiny stories that weren't really stories, they were more like sketches of moments.”
Soon enough, Martine had authored and illustrated the gentle, funny, and gloriously playful books such as The Slightly True Story of Cedar B. Hartley (Who Planned to Live an Unusual Life). In the story of twelve-year old Cedar B. Hartley, the young heroine befriends the son of a circus family and coordinates a local circus to raise money for the community's dog operation. The book has won a number of awards, including NYPL 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing, Book Sense 76 Children's Pick, it was shortlisted for Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the year Award, shortlisted for New South Wales Premier's Literary Award, and won the Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children's Books.
Martine Murray is currently enrolled in Professional Writing at RMIT and plans further study in screen writing and short story.
“When did you trust someone to hold a truth as carefully as you did?”
“I think when people get stuck in situations that go against their soul, they can't be happy. That's all.”
“But underneath it there was not a sound, there was nothing that even whimpered or budged in our tunnel and it seemed Harry and me were tightly sealed inside something, like two secret letters lying next to each other in an envelope.”