Meet the Author

History

Julie N Ford was born number four of six children on March Air Force Base in Riverside, California.  After spending the first ten years of her life as an air force brat, her family settled in San Diego, CA, where she spent the rest of her youth contemplating boys and every possible way to get to the beach . . . then, how long she could realistically stay.

At the ripe old age of twenty-seven, she finally graduated from San Diego State University with a BA in Political Science and a minor in English Literature.  During her time at SDSU she met a tenacious young man, Tracy Ford, two years her junior, who refused to take no for an answer when she repeatedly told him that he was too young for her. Promptly after graduation, they were married.

Married twenty years, they have two daughters.  Throughout their marriage, they braved hurricanes, tornados, eight years of a republican presidency, and moves from San Diego to San Antonio, back to California, to Birmingham, Palm Beach, and finally Nashville, TN where they hope to live out their days . . . down the street from her in-laws. However, after twenty-five years of residing below the Mason-Dixon line, she now (a bit begrudgingly) calls the chaparral of Southern Utah her home.

While living in Birmingham, she attended the University of Alabama, where she received a Masters Degree in Social Work.  With an MSW, she had hopes of working as a family therapist.  However, this ambition had to be put on hold when she was diagnosed with Lymphoma during her third semester of graduate school.

After enduring chemotherapy, she somehow escaped with her life and an unrelenting desire to tell Josie’s story. The only thing she can surmise is that somehow the chemo affected her creativity, kind of how a superhero will receive her/his powers after falling into a vat of toxic waste.  Besides more precious time with her husband and children, she would like to think that she got more out of four months of having chemicals pumped into her veins besides six months of impersonating the Buddha and premature menopause.

In addition to her primary job as a stay-at-home mom and budding author, she has worked as a substitute high school teacher, Lamaze Certified Childbirth and Infant CPR instructor, family therapist, and, don’t forget, Parisian’s sales associate.

In her spare time, she loves to ride her mountain bike, practice yoga, garden, and of course, read.  Some of her favorite authors include Daphne Du Maurier, Bronte, P.D. James, Michael Crichton, Linda Davies, Sophie Kinsella, Kristin Hannah, Linda Castello, and Karen White.

Why Did She Start Writing?

A few years ago (More like ten now) she got the bright idea to write a book. She’d had always entertained story ideas, and played around with plots and characters in her mind, but never had she considered writing any of her musings down. Then one day, one of the many stories banging around inside her head just sort of started to come together, so she thought she’d write some. One page turned into ten, then twenty and she let a friend read it. The friend liked it and wanted more so Julie kept writing. Long story short, four months later she had a novel! She hired an editor to help her clean it up and figured  it would only be a matter of time until someone wanted to publish it. (This is the part where you laugh hysterically at her naivety)

Not even in her wildest dreams did she think that SO many people wanted to be authors. And so, for over two years, her first book went through countless contests, re-writes, and rejections by agents and publishers. Finally, it was accepted for publication by a publisher who wanted her to pay part of the costs (don’t ever do this). After going round and round about whether or not it was worth the cost, she  decided to go for it, signed the contract and was on her way to publication.  That was until the publisher went out of business. Thankfully, she received a contract from another publisher and the book was finally published. Recently, the rights to this book and the sequel were reverted back to her and she was able to rewrite them (as a seasoned author this time) and published them herself.

Book Reviews

And since she is so opinionated about the books she reads, she thought she’d also throw in some book reviews. She mostly reviews books of her own choosing but if you’d like her to review one of your books, she’d be happy to. Just know that she’s honest with her reviews, brutally so. Also, she only reads paper books. No ebooks please 🙂 

Oh and one more thing: TYPOS, insufficient punctuation, poorly worded phrases and wordiness in general are all perfectly acceptable on this blog. After all, we’re just having fun — right!