Hi, I’m Julie!

When I was nine years old, my parents told me we were moving from Illinois to North Carolina. Not knowing anything about the South, I asked if I would have to wear a hoop skirt to school.

As it turned out, Southern life in a small town wasn’t quite hoop-skirt-level weird, but for me and my brothers it was a strange and lonely time. I felt awkward and out of place in our new home…until the day my mom got me my own library card.

…okay, so I was still awkward. But the library! A place with all my favorite books and new ones to fall in love with! It felt familiar. It felt safe. It was a step toward feeling at home in a new place.

My love of reading was fueled by Pizza Hut’s free Book-It pizzas, mystery novels sneaked onto my lap under my fourth grade desk, and Accelerated Reader points in eighth grade as I made it my mission to read 100 books in one school year. My high school years were spent indulging my nerdiest reading obsessions and blessedly not having social media yet.

Then came college and my 20’s, when I downright neglected the books on my bookshelves. I have no regrets! I traveled, I made memories, and I married the man of my dreams. The books waited for me.

And now, like so many moms I know, I’ve reconnected with reading like a long-lost friend. In the early years of motherhood, I’ve spent many a night rocking my babies in a lime green armchair while escaping into the sweet, strange, and dreamy lives of book characters.

As my kids grow older, I’ve felt the pull to write something a little more substantial than Lightning McQueen bedtime stories. (No disrespect to Mr. McQ. We’re big fans in this house.) Some of my favorite authors wrote weekly blogs when they were starting out. So, in the spirit of Laini Taylor, Maggie Stiefvater, Mara Rutherford, and many more…

Hello! Thank you for being here!