It was series like Dear America, Little House on the Prairie, and  American Girl books that instilled in Julie  at a young age her lifelong love and fascination with history. And a childhood spent growing up in  Philadelphia, colonial America's foremost metropolis, further cemented this love affair.

 

An ardent bibliophile (she can remember as a teenager carrying around a copy of  young adult historical fiction author Ann Rinaldi's gripping Civil War tale, The Last Silk Dress, and reading it between rides at Disney World because she didn't want to wait until she got back to her hotel room to finish it) it came as a surprise to no one when she became a librarian. Julie worked  at various libraries in the Pittsburgh area for almost a decade. 

 

Besides history, travel is Julie's other great love in life, especially when there's a food tour (or two) involved;  she's taken more than 20 in 13 countries around the world. Nothing brings the past more alive than being, in the words of Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton, right in  "The Room Where it Happened."

 

Julie published her first book, The Tears of Yesteryear, in 2019, followed by The Auschwitz Photograph (originally published as The Dead Are Resting) in 2021, and Red Clay Ashes in 2022. She lives in the Pittsburgh area, passport always at the ready for her next international adventure, but also brainstorming ideas for her next novel. 

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