Q&A

So, who are you? Martina Reilly?

Eh - yes.

I thought you were Tina Reilly?

I’m her too.

Oh, so who is Martina Murphy?

That’s me.

Do you suffer from some sort of identity crisis?

Doesn’t every writer? Seriously, though, let me explain. I was Martina Murphy when I wrote my YA books, way back in the nineties. I became Tina Reilly when I started writing for the commercial fiction market, then my publishers thought that my name should be changed to Martina Reilly. And now, I’m back to Martina Murphy for my crime writing.

Why are you writing crime now?

My favourite type of books when I was growing up were Enid Blyton’s “Famous Five” or “Secret Seven”. I loved the way the children in those books found mysteries and solved them. As I got older, I had a hankering to do the same. It was either join the Gardaí (Irish police force) or write books and I was already quite good at writing… And I like a new challenge. It’s important as a writer or as a creative person to keep challenging yourself. It keeps the work fresh.

What else does Martina Murphy do?

Well, I’m married; with two children and a dog. I also am a qualified drama teacher with the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. I taught drama for fourteen years and then gave it up as I was a hopeless businesswoman. In 2016, I founded Down at Heel Productions with the aim of producing new plays - mainly mine! We have previously produced a podcast, FRACTURED, is available on Podbean, Spotify, Google Podcast, and other platforms if anyone wants to give it a listen - we have a link at the top of the website! It tells the story, in soap format of the Irish War of Independence and its effect on a Kildare family. It’s been very successful. I also do a bit of journalism and have held a couple of jobs in newspapers.

How are your books doing?

Very well. They’ve been translated into French, German, Latvian, Italian, and Greek. Two of my teenage fiction books won awards and Something Borrowed, a women’s fiction was long-listed for an Impac Award.

So, what now?

I hope to keep writing more crime about Lucy and Dan. I also want to do more theatre. I’ve been writing since I was eight years old and couldn’t imagine ever doing anything else!