Senior Portfolio

In December 2020, I'm completing my Bachelor's degree in Interdisciplinary Liberal Arts with a minor in Creative Writing. Two pages on this website will compromise my final portfolio of both Fiction and Non-Fiction work. 

Statement of Purpose for my Senior Portfolio:

I love blending the Liberal Arts with the Sciences in my writing. I don’t think the two disciplinary areas have to be opposed to each other. I think they have more overlap than some believe. Throughout my college experience, I have gravitated towards blending the Arts and the Sciences. As a Fine Arts major early on, I created abstract paintings using mathematical formulas to choose colors. I was also inspired by the artistic nature of scientific graphs and the interactions between color, line, and hidden meanings. Math, science, and art can all tell stories to an audience. I believe that every discipline has an element of storytelling within it. When I returned to college in my 30s, I chose Interdisciplinary Liberal Arts to learn how to tell stories using knowledge from many disciplines. I picked Creative Writing as my minor because writing fiction helps me to process my world, especially the information I learn and the emotions I experience.

I love to formulate stories to share with an audience. I also love conveying fascinating pieces of scientific knowledge to my audience. Being able to communicate scientific concepts to people through my writing in an entertaining way will be a good use of my interdisciplinary training in a future writing and teaching career. The career paths I see open ahead include high school English/Language Arts teacher, Creative Writing teacher, K-12 Library Media Specialist, and/or published author. Providing critique and editing services for other writers is an additional occupation I could add to this list. I like to write speculative fiction, but I also enjoy writing about the process and craft of storytelling. My portfolio showcases some of my writing samples, from short story excerpts to essays and other research projects.

Fiction Portfolio here: https://www.megmurraywrites.com/p/fiction-writing.html

Non-Fiction Portfolio here: https://www.megmurraywrites.com/p/non-fiction.html

Biography page here: https://www.megmurraywrites.com/p/bio.html

2020: For Better or Worse

I'm still here. That's one part motivation mantra and one part gratitude statement. 2020 has been a terrible seven months for so many. For me, the year since I last posted on this blog has brought a lot of changes, for better and worse.

I'm still here on Earth, but in a different location and in a temporary home. We decided to move back to Colorado after eleven years in Georgia for many, many reasons. I didn't realize I had put down roots in Georgia until I picked up my feet to leave and felt the roots ripping out of the red clay ground.

Traveling across the country in the midst of a pandemic was stressful for my germaphobic self, but we managed. We are so lucky to have easily sold our Atlanta home and to have had a spot to land once arriving in our hometown. We're staying in an apartment while we purchase and renovate a house. We'll be transplanting our roots into this new home hopefully before the end of August. I'm ready to settle down for a long, long time.

On the more difficult end of the spectrum, we're trying to balance time with our extended family during the "safer at home" pandemic phase. My dad had a (non-Covid-19) medical emergency so we weren't able to see him for a couple of weeks while he was in the hospital. Thankfully, his condition has improved and we had a family picnic last week.

Now we are facing the decision to send the kids to their new school in a few weeks while the district plans a hybrid opening with two days in schools per week. I'm very nervous that this will make things worse. The kids are so desperate for social time with other kids, understandably. Meanwhile, I'll be starting my final semester at CSU Online. I envisioned taking my last three classes while the kids enjoyed their new school, but now I'll be rushed to get my homework done after helping the kids with their Virtual Learning. My writing schedule has disappeared during this chaotic summer, and I'm not sure how I will reclaim writing time until 2021... 

Best of luck to everyone with your writing and reading goals. Stay safe and be good to yourselves. 

Love from Meg.