Who are you?
I’m Julie Berry. I’m a full-time author of books. I also own an independent bookstore which is tremendous fun. Both it and I are based in western New York State in the town where I was born and raised. I returned there during Covid after 30 years away to buy, renovate, and reopen the bookstore as Author’s Note..
What do you write?
I write fiction for young readers, though my YA fiction is often considered crossover and is read by adults as well. I also write middle grade fiction and picture books for younger children. My novels range from historical to fantastical (often both) and humorous (often all three). If Looks Could Kill takes a mythological premise (Medusa is real) and applies a modern twist to it: Medusa-ness is a phenomenon that can strike girls and women, even in modern times, and the idea of her gaze instantly turning men to stone is a misreading of the ancient stories. It situates that premise in a researched historical novel–1888 in London’s East End and then Manhattan’s Lower East Side–in a way that is dark and violent and deathly serious (and romantic) and also, unexpectedly funny.
I loved writing as a teen and attempted to write stories but I could usually see at a glance that they couldn’t stack up to the literature I loved, so I lost heart. But I had some success writing essays – I won some scholarships and biggish prizes as a kid – so that gave me hope enough to major in communication and work on my professional writing skills. I wrote for various employers until a series of life events pushed me in the direction of writing humorous short columns for a newspaper. They were a sort of Erma Bombeck-meets-Dave Barry mashup. Soon I had a regular weekly column in a daily suburban Boston newspaper which ran for a few years. This gave me the confidence to return to graduate school for an MFA in creative writing. I spent a year in Simmons University’s MA/MFA program, then decided that a low-residency program would better suit my schedule as a mom of four young boys, so I transferred to Vermont College of the Fine Arts and completed my MFA there. By the time I had graduated I had secured an agent and sold my first novel.
I loathe, detest, and abominate the words “quip” and “smirk,” especially when smirk is used as a speech tag.
I do love what I do, and it brings me more joy and more of a sense of rightness and fit than any other profession has (setting aside motherhood). Like any job, it has its highs and its lows, its hard work and its frustrations, but when the writing is working, there’s nothing else like it. Except, maybe, when the over-active toddlers would finally fall asleep at night. Ahhh….
Where do you write?
I own an independent bookstore, and I have an office there with a splendid, huge monitor which is an immense help when writing and editing chapters. It’s a game changer to be able to see and read the text of 12 pages at a time. But my favorite place to write is at home, on my couch or even in bed. (I know. I know. Very bad in all the ways, including for the lower back. But I’m lazy and I love to be horizontal and warm, and my major life goal is to maximize my pajama time.)
I write on a PC laptop, but I do sometimes use my Remarkable 2 digital tablet for brainstorming and notes.
When do you write?
Publishing deadlines are tremendously helpful, and they do create a healthy sense of urgency. I also enjoy the freedom of writing novels that have not yet been sold, as they have no deadline but my own. Since writing is my chief occupation and livelihood, liking to get paid creates healthy urgency generally. :) I usually just just sit down to write and try to write as much as I can for as long as I can. Life can be chaotic with a family and a bookstore, so I often have to improvise what the day’s schedule will be and where and when writing will fit into it. I admire and slightly envy the writers whose lives are more scheduled and structured, but that doesn’t work for me. I have found that sometimes, if my thoughts wander with distractions and pings from the outside world, using a Pomodoro-like method of setting a timer for around 25 minutes and challenging myself to get as much done in that 25 minutes as I can sharpen my focus and accelerate my output. When the timer buzzes I usually just reset it and keep on going because the trick has already put me into a flow state, which was the goal all along.
Why do you write?
I consider writing to be more actively engaged reading, and therefore, I write for the same reason I read, which is to keep myself lost in story worlds as much as possible. I’m tremendously lucky that I get to make this my actual job. I never outline or plan my stories in advance, partly because my brain doesn’t work that way, but partly because I write, again, for the same reason I read, which is to find out what happens next, and to figure out whether or not they’ll make it in the end (and what “making it” will have cost them). It sounds so prosaic, but what motivates me is to finish, to finish the story at all and then to finish each of its endless iterations of revision, until it’s truly finished and I can close the book with a sense of wonder and satisfaction. I’m inspired, of course, by the books I’ve loved throughout my life and the bliss they imparted to me, but I’m also inspired and humbled by knowing that readers will open my books and follow me on this journey. They will entrust their time and their minds to the adventure I want to offer them. It’s both an incredible privilege and a sacred trust, I think, to do right by my readers, to offer them the truest fictional picture I can of what it means to be alive and human.
How do you overcome writer's block?
I once gave a talk on writer’s block in which I argued that it’s mislabeled and should be called “writer’s fear,” and I stand by that argument. When I’m stuck and I don’t know what to write, I’m afraid of something. But what? Usually the fear boils down to, “I’m afraid this is no good; the reason I don’t know what to do next is obviously that it’s no good.” The great big Inadequacy Monster is sitting on my head. I use journaling to get unstuck. I keep a personal journal, but I also keep a separate journal for most novels that I write. This is not for research facts, timelines, or other story details. This journal is entirely dedicated to my emotional health as I walk the path of creating this book. It serves a therapeutic purpose, to help me get all the anxiety out into the sunlight as quickly as possible. Usually, just by putting it down in black and white, I find I’ve defanged it to a large extent, and, having gotten it out of me, even a little, and into the journal, I free up some brain cells to get to work coming up with ideas.
Bonus: What do you enjoy doing when not writing?
Well, for starters, I love to read. I love yoga and running, so I like to run 5Ks whenever I get the chance. I did ten last year and I hope to run more this year. I play piano when I can, and I enjoy singing in and leading choirs. I love to cook and to bake, so when I’ve finished a project I take a little domesticity vacation and cook up a storm, and bake bread and pies. I’m also very fond of gardening and quilting, though owning a bookstore has made it hard to find time for either. I have a lot of fun dressing up my bookstore, so to speak, with ideas for window displays and holiday decor, and designs (illustrated by my sister, Sally Gardner) for bookmarks and swag.
My thanks to Julie Berry for today's interview.