Murphy, Judy May

PERSONAL: Born in Ireland. Education: Trinity College, Dublin, M.A. Hobbies and other interests: Reading self-help books, movies.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Health Communications, Inc., 3201 SW 15th St., Deerfield Beach, FL 33442. E-mail—judymay@judymaymurphy.com.

CAREER: Life coach, businessperson, and author. During early career, worked as a playwright and theater director; has also worked as an actress and writer for television. Founder of nutrition business; show-business boot camp operator; lecturer. Guest on television programs on American Broadcasting Company, British Broadcasting Corporation, and Warner Brothers Television.

WRITINGS:

That Girl from Happy (novel), Wolfhound Press (Dublin, Ireland), 2000.

(With Cathy Breslin) Your Life Only a Gazillion Times Better: A Practical Guide to Creating the Life of Your Dreams (nonfiction), Health Communications (Deerfield Beach, FL), 2005.

Contributor to periodicals, including Cosmopolitan, Prima, For Me, Complete Woman, and New Woman, among others.

SIDELIGHTS: Judy May Murphy is a life coach—or, as she prefers to be called, a "success coach"—who has studied under such motivational speakers as Tony Robbins and Deepak Chopra. In her early career, however, she worked as a theater director and playwright, and wrote a novel, That Girl from Happy, which was released in 2000. Struggling with depression since childhood, Murphy managed to overcome her emotional illness and resolved to share what she had learned with others. After studying under Robbins for several years, she set up her own life-counseling businesses in Los Angeles and Paris, and has been a success coach ever since.

In Your Life Only a Gazillion Times Better: A Practical Guide to Creating the Life of Your Dreams, which she wrote with Cathy Breslin, Murphy offers upbeat advice to women on how to turn their lives around for the better. The book did not impress some critics, including a Publishers Weekly contributor who found the advice it contains "simplistic" and also pointed out the "relentlessly chipper language." Allan Johnson, writing in the Chicago Tribune, similarly called the book a "juvenile" work that offers only "pat little affirmations." On the other hand, Deborah Bigelow, writing in Library Journal praised the authors' "hip, breezy style," finding the book "particularly appealing" for its "positive, can-do thinking."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Chicago Tribune, August 15, 2005, Allan Johnson, "Gee-Whiz to Happiness," review of Your Life Only a Gazillion Times Better: A Practical Guide to Creating the Life of Your Dreams.

European Intelligence Wire, September 9, 2003, "A Day in the Life: Judy May Murphy, Life Coach."

Library Journal, July 1, 2005, Deborah Bigelow, review of Your Life Only a Gazillion Times Better, p. 104.

Publishers Weekly, May 16, 2005, review of Your Life Only a Gazillion Times Better, p. 50.

ONLINE

Judy May Murphy Home Page, http://www.judymaymurphy.com (March 10, 2006).