Yxta Maya Murray is the author of six novels, including The King’s Gold, and the forthcoming The Good Girls Guide to Getting Kidnapped. She teaches criminal law, feminist legal theory, and law and literature at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, where she has taught since 1995. Before discussing what makes an L.A. writer for a Zócalo panel in Guadalajara, Murray told us a bit more about herself.
Q. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A. A writer.
Q. What is your favorite cocktail?
A. I drink wine.
Q. What is your greatest extravagance?
A. Stockings.
Q. If you could take only one more journey, where would you go?
A. To go see my husband.
Q. If you could live in any other time, past or future, when would it be and why?
A. The future, because I have not abandoned hope that things are still getting better.
Q. What profession would you like to practice in your next life?
A. I’d like to be a healer.
Q. What is your fondest childhood memory?
A. Reading.
Q. Whose talent would you like to have?
A. That bastard Picasso’s.
Q. What is your most prized material possession?
A. My home.
Q. What promise do you make to yourself that you break the most often?
A. Not to curse.
Q. What teacher or professor changed your life?
A. I had an English professor at UCLA, among others, who was very supportive. He wound up encouraging me to go to law school, and I did.
Q. Who is the one person living or dead you would most like to meet for dinner?
A. Voltaire.
To read about Murray’s panel on L.A. writers, click here.
*Photo by Miguel Izquierdo.