G. Murray Thomas is best known as the founder and editor of Next..., a monthly newsmagazine covering Southern California poetry in the mid 1990’s. Thomas is a writer of poetry, fiction and journalism. He has also edited a variety of books, anthologies and magazines.
Thomas was born in 1957, in Brockport NY, just outside of Rochester. In 1980, he received a BA in Creative Writing from Hampshire College, in Amherst MA. His first publication, in 1975, was a selection of poems in Writer’s Cramp, a literary magazine in Rochester. He had a few short stories published in small presses during the 1980’s.
He moved to Southern California in 1987, and was soon an active member of the SoCal poetry scene. Over the next few years, he was a featured reader at many poetry venues throughout SoCal.
His first chapbook, Death to the Real World and other poems about life, was published by "poetry sucks" press in 1990. Other chapbooks include Opposite Oceans (Orange Ocean Press 1993), Poetry Spilled All Over the Carpet (Inevitable Press 1996), A Rare Thing (Inevitable Press 1998), and Songs of Inappropriate Desire (Orange Ocean Press 2004).
He founded Orange Ocean Press in 1993. Orange Ocean Press published the anthologies Paper Shredders (surf writing, 1993) and Polluted Poems (environmental poetry, 1994), as well as books by Lawrence Schulz, Tom Foster and Walt Hopmans.
He started Next... Magazine in March, 1994 (see full entry for Next... Magazine). Next... was published monthly until Oct. 1998.
Thomas has written reviews and other articles for many SoCal magazines and websites, including O.C. Weekly, Skratch, Panik and The Independent Reviews Site. He is currently calendar and reviews editor for Poetix.net, a website devoted to SoCal poetry.
His first full length book of poems, Cows on the Freeway, was published by iUniverse in 1999. iUniverse reprinted an expanded version of Paper Shredders in 2004.
From 2001 - 2003, Thomas performed spoken word with a band called Murray.
He currently hosts a monthly poetry radio show as part of The Prime Spot Radio, on KBeach.org. Thomas is currently looking for a publisher for a novel.
G. Murray Thomas on myspace.com
poetix.net
KBeach.org