WRITER
STORYTELLER
TEACHER
Julie Hartley
Welcome to my website! I’m a novelist, poet, creative writing teacher, editor, retreat leader and parrot owner. Here, you’ll find details of my books, including my two historical novels, set in England during World War 2 and released by Bookouture. You’ll also find information on this website about my annual creative writing retreats in Mexico and Costa Rica, and my creative writing classes for adults and teens. Check out my blog, too, for writing prompts and techniques, tales of travel and musings on a creative life. Oh – and there are a few stories about the parrot, too.
The Promise She Made is Out Now!
It’s September 1940, and with the Blitz underway 18-year-old Ruby is determined to protect her little sister from the bombs – after all, she promised as much to their mother, just before she died. So, Ruby books passage for them both on the SS City of Benares, to safety in Canada. However, her plan backfires when the Nazis torpedo the ship as it crosses the Atlantic Ocean. Ruby is injured, and eight-year-old Eliza is reported ‘lost at sea’.
Back in England, Ruby sets about rebuilding her life, determined to plough all her energy into the defeat of Nazi Germany. She trains as a spy and prepares to parachute into Occupied France. But then, she stumbles on a letter that changes everything. It seems her sister may not be dead, after all.
The Promise She Made is available on Kindle and in paperback through most online stores or by following this link: https://geni.us/ThePromiseSheMade
The Finding Place – Front Cover!
What a thrilling moment, to see the front cover of your novel for the very first time! And here it is. The background shows the Karst Peaks around Yangshuo, a magical landscape that features prominently in the novel.
Creative Writing: It All Begins with the Daydream
Do we day dream enough these days? Do we tell ourselves stories in our heads for our own entertainment? See something unusual and ask ourselves, what if? Perhaps not. Ten years ago, perhaps twenty, we all had so-called dead time in our days. The walk to work or school. The moments spent relaxing in a bath. Time on public transit. Time spent waiting. And none of it was wasted. We day dreamed. Made plans. Formulated possible futures in our heads to see what they might look like. We imagined, and out of those imaginings ideas were born – some big, some to be discarded or smiled at, all of them worthwhile. These days, dead time has been killed. We fill it with texting, checking emails, [...]
Creative Writing: Getting Surreal
Recently, at the Centauri Arts Academy, I’ve been using surrealist experiments as a part of the writing workshops. Most people take writing workshops for one of three reasons. The first two are usually evident to them: they want to learn techniques that will help make them better writers, and they want to share their work to get help with the editing process. But there is a third reason that writing workshops can be a huge help to young or emerging writers: they help us to identify what inspires us, how and when we are at our most creative, and under what conditions we write best. Discussion with like-minded people is a great way to discover many of these things about ourselves. So are surrealist writing [...]