About Julia
This is where I get to step out of the shadows of this official website, and tell you a few things you might want to know about me, and several more that you probably don't.
Welcome to Julia Edwards Books!
Full name: Julia Edwards
My parents deprived me of a middle name, much to my regret as a child. On the other hand, one of my husband's middle names is Kirby, so maybe not having one isn't all bad.
Age: 40 something
I always have to work it out, so you can do the legwork if you care - I was born in February 1977.
Sex: female
I'm from that under-represented group of women who hate shopping and have no capacity to show interest in shoes, handbags or nails. Sorry.
Welcome to Julia Edwards Books!
This is me.
Marital status: married ...
... slightly surprisingly, to the same man for over 20 years. We've got pretty good at putting up with each other.
Children: three boys
Their ages keep on changing, but roughly speaking, there's one who still boings for hours on the trampoline, one who's a drama queen, and one who's comfortably out-eating me. They've already outnumbered me, and it won't be long before all three of them out-grow me.
Pets: none ...
... which is to say none that I wanted to own. In recent years, I have seen off two budgies and two ferrets. However, we are still blessed with a variable number of chickens, depending on how many have hatched lately, how many of those have turned out to be cockerels, and whether the fox has visited. The most recent tally is 8, down from a peak of 20 something, largely due to stoats. At least our neighbours can't complain about the crowing, because they have cockerels of their own (although they've eaten their turkeys)! Sadly, chickens are no good for keeping away the deer that maraud through the garden at dawn, dusk and all hours between, eating the flowers.
This picture of me was taken to go with a very serious magazine article. My mother encouragingly said, "Why on earth are you looking like that?"
Books: currently the 9 you've seen on here
- plus one for YA readers which has been renamed 'Hunting the Butterfly' and gets other changes ever time I look at it - it's been a work in progress since 2020 and I'm still not done with it!
- the first draft of another one for kids about a girl, a ghost, and a guardian angel (I hope you appreciate my alliteration!), called 'An Idiot's Guide to Grave Robbing'. The first half has already had a full rewrite but I had to pause to try and figure out the ending. I finished it recently, but the first draft leaves a lot to be desired, as usual! Not much is likely to get done on it over the summer holidays, so I'll come back to it in September. Hopefully, I'll be able to pin down and fix everything that's wrong with it then!
- the first two stories of a second volume of Unlucky for Some, this one aimed more at secondary school kids;
- plus the first five chapters of a novel for adults I've been writing on and off for over a decade, called 'Dancing in the Shadows';
- oh, and one more in the attic which will never see the light of day, which was how I learnt to write!
I'm also mulling over a Scar Gatherer spin-off series starting with a novel set in ancient Maya. Maybe 2025 will take Joe and Lucy to Tikal! After that, I'm wondering about taking them to ancient Egypt, since that's a question I've been asked on almost every school visit I've ever done. One of my sons has been badgering me for years to write a story called 'Mining for Pharaohs', so perhaps his wish will come true!
Education: University of Cambridge
French and German, which isn't usually relevant to my job, though it's helped a lot with research for 'Dancing in the Shadows'.
Best compliment ever received:
'Some people have a nasty streak. Julia's got a nice streak.'
That was said about me many years ago, and I still treasure it! As a writer, however, I've been hiding my light under a bushel, and all of my books have been broadly nice ... until I let the real Julia step forward and wrote Unlucky for Some.
If there's anything else you want to know, you can email me and ask. If it's a reasonable question, I'll answer. Oh, and you can follow me on two different Facebook pages, if that sort of thing interests you: one for The Scar Gatherer, the other for Unlucky for Some.
