Friday Mystery Author ...Revealed!

This poor thing -- she's looking really broken up.







Any idea who this blogging author could be? She hails from the East and does a lot to keep young adults authors connected in Canada. And if you want to learn all there is to know about b-girls...read on!

But first, this skater girl needs to lift the veil on our guest:





Hey! It's Jill Murray! Welcome, Jill.

Darby Christopher: My new story, A WALK THROUGH A WINDOW, is all about how different people came to live in Canada. Where were you born?

Jill Murray: I was born in Toronto. My parents were Maritimers. My family on my mother's side has been in Canada for a few hundred years. I suppose they would have arrived by boat.

DC: Hey -- same as mine! You can read a bit of my family's story in my new book. So where do you live now?

JM: I live in Montreal now. The city is a part of me.

DC: Cool. I've heard it's an awesome city. Do you remember any special stories about your family that you heard when you were growing up in Toronto?

JM: My great grandmother on my mother's side was Acadian, and as legend has it, they had a rule in their house that at the dinner table, you spoke in French, or you didn't speak at all. Consequently, dinners were silent. And if the story is true, that's how my family personally helped crush its own little parcel of Acadian culture. I guess that's a little depressing, but its the first thing that came to me.

DC: My friend Gabe is Acadian. His story shows up in my next book. So, you may not know this, but as a Toronto girl, it is my greatest ambition to skate down Yonge Street. Can you ride a skateboard?

JM: No! I cannot! I've always been a rollerblades girl, and thus I am the scorned enemy of skateboarders. You can't win 'em all.

DC: Hey -- it takes talent to ride those rollerblades. Besides writing books and rollerblading, do you have a secret skill or talent you’d like to share?

JM: Baking and web code. On days when I take brownies to work and then write on my lunch hour, my life is pretty much complete.

DC: Any girl who codes is a geek after my own heart. Now my particular talent seems to lie in walking through windows. If you had a chance to walk through a window into the past, where would you go?

JM: Since you've got me thinking about my skates: to just after I turned fifteen, but just before I took a rubber speed bump on my rollerblades and was rewarded with a face full of pavement, a knocked out tooth, a root canal, a false tooth, surgery, and stitches. We get to make different decisions when we go back, right? Otherwise... yesterday or the day before yesterday, so I can extend my vacation.

DC: You've got to talk to kc dyer about the whole knocking-out-of-teeth thing. I think you two have something in common! Other than her, anyone special you’d like to meet?

JM: I would like to meet an amazing landlord who wants to rent me a gorgeous one or two bedroom apartment in a great neighborhood in Montreal, for not too much money.

DC: Can you tell me a bit about your latest project?

JM: BREAK ON THROUGH is the world's first and only b-girl novel. A b-girl is a breakdancer, and my book follows Nadine from downtown Toronto to the outer-outer suburbs, where she has to remake her life and her breakdance crew from scratch at a time when the whole world seems to be against her.

Nadine is the kind of girl who would ride a skateboard. She can also spin on her head and intimidate you using only her posture and a well-pointed glare.

DC: She sounds like my kinda girl. I hope to get to meet her one day soon. If I want to learn more about you or your books on-line, where can I go check you out?

JM: I'm at JillMurray.com. Break on through is at JillMurray.com/break-on-through. I also host a Canadian YA and middle-grade book community blog at y-eh.ca.

Well, thanks a lot for talking to me today, Jill! And if you'd like to win a signed copy of Jill's book, leave a comment below. Which do you prefer -- skateboard or rollerblades? And hey -- no bias to be shown to the winner -- judging will be blind, I promise!

~Darby