JulieA's Bio
You could say JulieA was born when ‘Roger And The Bum-Bubble’ went to print.
However, I wrote my first story, ‘A Dream For Inca’, about 28 years ago now. I wrote the story and set it aside for all those years.
I wrote very little else till Roger was ‘born’, about 2005 or so.
At the time I wrote Inca, I was a stay at home mum with four little kids. We lived on acreage, on the perimeter of a little country town. The kids had motorbikes, ponies, a dam and a little creek, and lots of outdoor activities to keep them amused.
But, I read to them every night. Books were a great source of pleasure for them, and stimulated their imaginations. I loved reading to them. But, never in my wildest dreams did I think of writing my own kids stories, especially with a view to publishing. It never entered my head. I was too busy working and raising a family. But I needed something more. So, I decided to do a few courses to keep me amused. I did a course to be a JP, but never got sworn in. I did a course on freelance journalism, but never took it any further. I did a course on writing for kids and wrote Inca, and set him aside and forgot about him for about a quarter of a century! I remember sitting out under the car port with a tiny state of the art, portable type writer. It had a ribbon that had both red and black ink, so it was rather fancy. It was about 30cm wide, and there was no erase mechanism. My lousy typing skills meant that many sheets of paper were used to get one good page without errors. It was very time consuming for me. So, I did the courses and that was that! When my youngest child started school, I went back to full time work. That was the end of short courses for me. Family and work were all encompassing.
Years went by...
I worked, full time. Kids grew and left home, life was busy and full. I started to write a few stories, just for fun. Soon I had a few of my stories with a kids literary agency in New York. Wow, I was accepted by an agency in New York! I thought I must be getting close to something big here! All that happened there was it cost me money for rejections from publishers. I have lists on A4 pages of rejections from them. Then in 2009, with the downturn in the economy, I got the flick from them, along with a lot of other people. In hindsight, they did me a favour really.
Then, in 2008 my husband and I ended up living and working in Kununurra in Western Australia. I believe Australia has an awesome back yard, and I love being outdoors. So, I went bushwalking, and I managed to break my leg. Ouch. That saw me out of action for a good while. Then, when I went to Darwin to have it pinned and plated, I met up with a family member, and asked her if she knew of a publisher. I was told of Acashic, in Perth. So, one day I was sitting at the computer doing nothing in particular, and I stumbled upon Roger, which I had written a few years earlier. So, I bundled him up in an email and sent him off to Acashic, thinking I would never hear of him again.
I was stunned when the phone rang two nights later with an offer to publish him! I was floored. I had no idea about publishing and all it involved. I simply thought someone bought your story, made it into a book, and the money rolled in! That’s what happens in the movies and on the TV shows. WRONG. It is a process. A long, interesting and expensive process involving many people.
Part of that process was deciding if I should publish under my own name, or a pseudonym. I decided to use my own name, but in a unique way. I guess it was rather selfish, but I wanted to have a name, (a signature), that was just mine. I wanted something unique, that no one else had, or could replicate. I wanted something I could not share. I felt Roger was born of my imagination, so I would somehow use just the name my mother gave me, in a unique way. So I used my Christian name, with the first letter of my middle name. Hence the capital A in JulieA. The x over the i is just a little touch I have used for as long as I can remember when I signed things for people who were special to me. I put the x over the I because I think all the people who read my stories are special to me.
With the publishing of my books, Acashic have stood by me, guided me, taught me, and sometimes dragged me along in the publishing process, and the results are beautiful kids books I am proud to say I have written. I am delighted by each page I turn in these books. For me, there is a little piece of magic between each page. Just recently I watched my daughter read Dung Beetle Disaster to my grandkids, (her nephew and niece). To see them point at the pictures, and delight in the story took me back to when I used to read to her when she was that age. The difference being, I was the author here. It was my imagination that delighted my grandkids. It was the words and ideas that fell out of my head that intrigued them. To see this in amazing books, I give all thanks to Acashic to allow me to leave such a lasting legacy for my kids and grandkids, and I hope many happy memories for all the kids who read my stories.
And that’s pretty much how the name JulieA was born.
