Jennifer Murphy

Jennifer Murphy holds an MFA in painting from the University of Denver and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Washington. She is the recipient of the 2013 Loren D. Milliman Scholarship for creative writing and was a contributor at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference from 2008 through 2012. In 2015, her acclaimed debut novel, I Love You More, won the prestigious Nancy Pearl Fiction Award. Her love of art led her to start Citi Arts, a public art and urban planning company that has created public art master plans for airports, transit facilities, streetscapes, and cities nationwide. She hails from a small beachfront town in Michigan and has lived in Denver, Charlotte, Seattle, and Charleston. She currently lives in Houston, Texas.

Murphy's new novel is Scarlet in Blue.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

I knew the title early on. I generally know a title before I start writing. In Scarlet in Blue, I wanted the title to do more than one thing. Scarlet and Blue are the names of the book’s main characters, a mother and fifteen-year-old daughter who are on the run from a phantom man but using in instead of and is about the concept of one character or person being inside another. This isn’t immediately clear when the book begins but as the novel unfolds it becomes a unifying theme throughout. For example, where it has to do with Blue, who is a pianist, her piano teacher tells her that when playing the work of a famous composer, Beethoven, for instance, she should imagine the composer is inside her, feel his energy and how he must have felt when he played the piece. Scarlet, a painter, employs this same practice. Scarlet and blue are also colors. Color in general figures both in large and subtle ways throughout the novel. Mixing paint. The color red. Blood. The idea of fugitive pigment, or fading pigment, relates to both the impressionist artists that Scarlet studies and models her paintings after, but also the nomadic life of the mother and daughter. To Blue, their constant moves have made her feel like she herself is fading into life, that no one will remember her. Finally, each time they move, Scarlet tosses the contents of a box of Crayola crayons on the bed. They close their eyes and whichever crayon they choose becomes their next names.

What's in a name?

I think that’s mainly answered above. But I did choose the name Scarlet for a very specific reason that is later explained in the novel.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Endings. When I start writing a novel I already know the story before words hit the page. Maybe it’s intuitive to a point, but for me I understand the need to draw a reader in, so as I formulate the story in my mind, I’m always thinking about three things. What’s this story mainly about? Where is the best place to enter the story? What type of opening scene will hook the reader? Endings on the other hand aren’t as defined for me. I have an idea of the larger ending, the plot ending, but I’m not always certain until halfway through exactly where to leave the reader, or me. A novel is kind of like a relationship that you know is ending. How do you best honor the journey you took together?

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

I was a single mom for many years so writing about a single mother and daughter was sometimes cathartic for me. Emotionally I connected with their strong love for one another, their closeness, the way they were nearly one person, even Blue’s teenage angst. But Scarlet’s past is nothing like mine. Her trauma bled into their relationship. Like Scarlet I am a painter. I have an MFA in painting. Like Blue I played the piano, but I wasn’t a concert pianist. I have moved a lot throughout my life, so a lot of what I brought to Blue’s character in terms of her feelings about moving came from my own experience.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

My painting. I’ve always written, but I formally studied painting first. The process of both is very similar. The building of layers. The abbozzo or underpainting to the rough draft. The layers and layers of paint to the numerous edits. All build toward the final product. I also love movies that make me think beyond pure entertainment. Movies that are puzzles. I watch a lot of Netflix, Hulu and Prime. So many movies, and even miniseries, are educational in terms of story structure, dialogue, character development, poetic approach, beginnings and endings. Twist endings! I also think moving a lot has influenced my writing. That inability to marry myself to one writing room or special place. To write through noise and moving boxes and clutter and chaos. To learn to write through the turmoil of continuous change has taught me that words can be found anywhere. And this might sound maudlin, but that words and stories will always be there, will always get me through.

Visit Jennifer Murphy's website.

--Marshal Zeringue