Join me on the Interlocutor podcast I spoke with Tyrel Eskelson of the Interlocutor Podcast recently and the episode was published yesterday. It starts with some questions about my first book, Vagabond Dreams. That was a nice surprise because it all seems so long ago. We also talked about breaking into magazine travel writing. And of course life in Malta and my recent book A Sunny Place for Shady...
New podcast appearance Do you miss me? Wait… maybe it’s better if you don’t answer that. I was going to ask if you missed the velvety tone of my voice, but I’m missing it, too. What I hear instead is the cracked, sleep-deprived voice of an introvert who spends too much time alone in a room. If you’re looking for a dose of THAT, you’re in luck. I spoke with Chris Braucks about Malta and my book A...
I stopped by Intrepid Times to speak with Nathan James Thomas about A Sunny Place for Shady People, which they described as “a gripping tale that all serious readers of travel writing need to have on their shelves.” We talked about some of the events I described in the book, as well as the challenges I encountered in writing it, and whether or not outsiders have the right to tell the story...
The back cover of my book A Sunny Place for Shady People refers to Malta as “an island so small that few knew it was an independent country and even fewer could find it on the map”. It isn’t a sleight at Malta’s size, or an accusation of insignificance. It’s a comment on how little foreigners know about a country whose strategic location at the centre of the Mediterranean placed it in...
I’m doing an author talk at the Prescott Public Library next Saturday May 25th. That’s Prescott, Ontario. Not the other Prescott in Arizona. Start time is 1:30pm. I’ll speak for about 20 minutes, and will do two readings from A Sunny Place for Shady People, followed by Q&A and signing. I’ll have copies of the book available on site if you’d like to buy one (or three) directly from me. The...
Did you miss our live launch conversation for A Sunny Place for Shady People? I know the start time didn’t fit everyone’s schedule. It was 1am here in Berlin — but I’m far sharper past midnight than I am in the morning, so I didn’t mind. I spoke with Jeremy Bassetti, host of the excellent Travel Writing World podcast, about: why I moved to a country I’d never been to the history of this...
Tuesday April 23 is the official publication day for my new book A Sunny Place for Shady People. It’s been a long haul from first draft to finished volume. I must have rewritten it seven or eight times as the story I set out to tell morphed into the story I had to write. I hope you’ll join me on Zoom for the online launch. I’ll be talking with Jeremy Bassetti, host of the excellent Travel...
I want to give you a rare behind-the-scenes look at what it’s like being an investigative journalist in Malta after the car bomb assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia. And so I reached out to my friend Caroline Muscat, founder and editor-in-chief of The Shift, the Maltese investigative news portal where I was a weekly columnist for over four years. If you’ve read my new book A Sunny Place...
A Sunny Place for Shady People by Ryan Murdock My new book is now available for your reading pleasure. It’s called A Sunny Place for Shady People, and it’s about six years I spent living on the island of Malta. I went there because I wanted to write an island book inspired by Lawrence Durrell — and there was light and laughter in those early years. But then there was an election, and everything...
I drove back to the barbershop in Zejtun a month after we left the village. The door rattled aside on its warped metal track. The chihuahua behind the counter barked and glared. An old lady reclined in a chair like the sheeted dead. I smiled and said hello to the receptionist, and she smiled too. But when the barber turned to look at me, he staggered back a step and froze. The smile...