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Julia Green |
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Julia Green lives in Bath with her two sons. She is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, and Course Director for the specialist MA in Writing for Young People. So far, she's written three novels for young adults, published by Puffin ( Blue Moon, Baby Blue, Hunter's Heart) as well as novels and short stories for younger children. She runs writing workshops for children and adults in schools and at literature festivals and for special projects such as Young Cultural Creators in London.
To find out more about Julia and her books go to http://www.julia-green.co.uk
NAME:
Julia Green
PLACE & DATE OF BIRTH:
Ashtead 6.7.56
FAVOURITE BOOK:
Tom's Midnight Garden (Philippa Pearce), The Children of Green Knowe (Lucy Boston) and all the stories by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Wuthering Heights; Jane Eyre; Middlemarch.
FAVOURITE SONG:
Summertime
FAVOURITE FILM:
The Spirit of the Beehive
MOST TREASURED POSSESSION:
Photographs of my children
When did you start writing?
As a child. I wrote stories and poems and kept notebooks. I used to write poems on the train when we travelled back from visiting my grandparents. My stories were often echoes of things I'd read. I used to wish we lived somewhere remote and wild, like Laura Ingalls Wilder, or that I could travel back in time. I was a founder member of the Puffin Club! I stopped writing creatively when I was doing exams at school and university, but I started keeping a writing journal again while I was living in Oxford. The first 'adult' poem I published was about my mother. Then I started writing short stories, and I wrote my first novel after my children were born.
Where do you get your ideas and inspiration from?
All around. Things I've heard or felt or experienced or read or thought. Ideas usually start in my notebook: a snippet of a conversation overheard, or something on the news, or writing about something that I'm feeling or thinking about. Certain themes seem to keep cropping up. And from my own imagination - that magical, mysterious place from which stories come.
Can you give your top 3 tips to becoming a successful author
1. Read lots. Join the library!
2. Write for yourself. Keep a writing notebook where you can write anything you want and no one else is going to read it or criticise you.
3. Be determined and keep practising. Edit and re-write stories and poems. Take your time.
Favourite memory
The births of my two children. That moment when you come face to face with this new person: a complete miracle.
Favourite place in the world and why?
Lots of places: my house, with its view over hills; the sea; islands.
What are your hobbies?
Reading. Growing fruit and vegetables (and lots of weeds) on our allotment. Going for walks. Playing the piano (not very well).
If you hadn’t been a writer what do you think you would have been?
I've done lots of jobs: library assistant, home-help, publicity assistant; sub-editor; English teacher in school and further education colleges; home-tutor for children not in main-stream school; creative writing tutor, lecturer. I still do the teaching as well as writing.
