Hi there.  My name is Steve Murphy (or if you want, my pen name is Steven Francis Murphy) and I’m published writer and historian.  I’ve blogged for five years at Journalspace and while I like the blog engine, they’ve been down for three days, which is a bit excessive.  I plan on keeping this as a backup while I try it on for size. 

A little bit about myself. 

I’m a veteran of the United States Army Signal Corps, four years, and two additional years in the Kansas Army National Guard as an Infantryman.  I liked the infantry far more than I liked the Signal Corps.  In my six years of combined military service, I served in Operation Desert Storm with HHB 1/5 Field Artillery, 1st Infantry Division out of Fort Riley, Kansas.  I also spent a year in Korea, a nice enough country but an experience I never talk about.  On active from 1989 to 1993, I got into the Guard just in time for the Flood of 1993 and served on flood duty.  After two more years I hung up the salad suit for good, for a lot of reasons. 

My Master of Arts specialization is European History, specifically with an emphasis on Ancient Greece, Rome and English History.  I also have a gender studies specialization and before anyone asks, no, it does not help me understand the opposite sex any better than most men.  I earned my MA in 2001 and spent the next few years in academic limbo looking for an adjunct job, which I finally locked down in 2007.  I’ve been teaching for three semesters now moving on into my fourth this January. 

In the meantime between 2001 and 2007 I worked as a private security officer which enabled me to work on my other passion, which was writing.  Science fiction had been a constant companion through childhood with friends like Robert Heinlein’s Have Spacesuit, Will Travel and Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles.   I always enjoyed the escape those writers provided from an otherwise dull, mundane and sometimes unpleasant childhood.  The novels were fun and sometimes I feel that present day science fiction writers have gotten away from that.

I sold my first story to a British magazine, Interzone, edited by Andy Cox, on January 17, 2007.  Yes, I actually remember the date as I wanted desperately to quit my day job.  Tearing Down Tuesday was published in Issue 210 of that publication in June and she placed fourth in the annual reader’s poll.  Not bad for someone on their first time out.  Tearing Down Tuesday is slated for republication with Apex Online Magazine in the near future.

My second story sold to an American science fiction and horror publication called Apex Digest.  They later changed into an online format called Apex Online and increased their pay rate to professional standards.  I was fortunate to benefit from these changes.  The Limb Knitter appeared on their website September 8th, 2008.  It did well enough in the comments thread and at my old blog.  Sadly, it only picked up one online review. 

I’m on the outs with the science fiction community, for a lot of reasons.  I’m not politically correct, I do not suffer fools well and I have long since grown tired of the additional constraints and demands many in the community place upon writers.  I feel, at the end of the day, that it is my decision as to what types of characters and stories I should write, not someone from the far left.  There is also the ongoing stereotype which runs rampant in the community regarding Flyover Country USA, the Midwest, which is usually depicted as Bubba Gump Rednecks who do not have a clue, are racist bigots, and love their guns a bit too much. 

So I find that I am unsure as to what my future will be as a writer, especially pertaining to science fiction. 

On other fronts, I am the research assistant and sometimes cowriter for Australian writer John Birmingham.  I assisted in research for his third novel, Final Impact, which is set in an Alternate World War II timeline.  I also helped out with his latest novel, to be released in the States in February 2009, Without Warning.  John pointed out that I provided some last minute help as cowriter for some of his components in the novel, something that I probably never would have openly admitted to otherwise.  In any case, I consider him to be a good friend and mentor.  I’m lucky to have him in my corner. 

Blogging has been problematic since I started teaching.  I never thought I’d get the chance to teach and sometimes have thought that the best thing to do would be to delete my old blog.  Perhaps I should still do that.  I have to be careful about blogging about my teaching since the students have a natural expectation for privacy, which often deprives me of some very good stories to blog about. 

So here is the usual format of my entries.

The Writing Front

The Teaching Front

The Physical Fitness Front

Other Fronts

I originally got a blog to rant about politics but I find that I have lost interest in doing so.  Granted, I still blow up ever so often (I’m a registered independent that votes Republican if that tells you anything).  These days I find that my blog serves as a sounding board, online post it note and a place to network.

Will I keep the other blog?  Depends on if Jspace can get their act together.  They’ve never been down three days before.  And I could probably use a fresh start blog wise.

We’ll see.

Respects,

Steven Francis Murphy

On the Outer Marches