Julie Hearn used to be a journalist. After her daughter was born she began a degree in Education but switched to English after suffering a panic attack while attempting to teach maths to year six.

She went on to complete a Masters Degree in women’s studies at Oxford University, where something she read about a young girl who was shown as a fairground “monster” in the 17th century, inspired her first novel Follow Me Down (2003).

Since then Julie has written about witchcraft
(The Merrybegot, 2005); the beauty and perils of the Victorian art work (Ivy, 2006), the legacy of the Slave Trade (Hazel, 2007) and madness (Rowan
the Strange, 2009)

She has been nominated four times for the CILIP Carnegie Medal, and shortlisted for the Branford Boase Award, the UKLA Children’s Book Award and the Guardian Children’s Fiction prize.

Julie lives in Oxfordshire where she writes full time (most mornings anyway) in a pink and green office in her garden.