Intimate Interviews

Midnight talks with Julie

[Madhu, After Dark] After reading your story 'Wolf's Wife' I'm sure many of your readers, including me, would love to know more about who you are on the other side of the screen?

[Julie, Featured Author] On the other side of the screen is a cheerful goofball, which might surprise people who have read Wolf's Wife or the sequel. All my rage and darker passions come out in my stories—when I write, it's to bleed out the painful things from my past, and everything comes straight from the heart no matter how weird or raw or vulnerable it might be. But outside of spinning stories about the tenderness of beasts, I'm a simple woman with simple tastes, living with my own beast-man and working from home as a freelance illustrator while trying to build a career as a writer.

I love to cook (and to eat, ha!) and recently got into gardening (growing lemon trees from seeds; MORE things to eat). I live in Northern California but prefer hard liquor to wine.

[M] Ooh! *MAJOR SQUEALS* A fellow eater! I love you already! :P And I totes agree about the hard liquor too! But, what inspired you to write such a dark story, which is mythical, racy and slightly melancholic at the same time?

[J] Yay, a fellow food hound! I swear, the first time I legitimately swooned was when my beau first made a meal for me. Fuck the flowers; cook for me and I'm yours!

As for the inspiration behind Wolf's Wife...well, I wrote it in nineteen blurry days as an act of grief. A howl of rage. I'd been depressed and suicidal for months after coming out of an abusive relationship, and also caught up in a nasty writer's block that had lasted for over a year. I had just scrapped another failed writing project, realizing how much I hated following genre norms in an attempt to build a successful writing career. So there I was, at a point where I had to admit to myself just how many behaviors had been hardwired into me from someone I'd trusted and adored, how my careful career plans were sucking my passion dry, and how rotten my personal foundation had become, and I couldn't even write to get away from it. Dark days, you know?

I don't remember what my snapping point was. I just remember sitting down with all this shit boiling over in my head, and out came Wolf's Wife, a story that had nothing to do with author branding or reaching the widest possible audience. A story that was ugly and feral, vulnerable and raw, and pulled straight out of my heart.

I think the mythic tone came through so strongly because I've always loved the dark, sexual undertones of old-school fairy tales, and I've always been interested in pulling werewolves more toward that. So I wanted to write a story with a monstrous, in-between creature that can love like a man and maul like a wolf, living a life of constant fight or flight, and then he meets a woman who isn't afraid of him. A woman who feels ugly, like the best pieces of herself have been taken away, and finds it a relief to be in the company of someone who is at least honest about savagely mauling people instead of hiding those tendencies behind a mask of affection.

The sexuality bleeds right into that with Alice, the heroine, reveling in giving into her base desires. In becoming unleashed, so to speak. Filth and joy is my personal motto when it comes to writing sex, and I wanted the erotic aspects of the story to be both of those.

So yeah, Wolf's Wife is a story of pure, snarling catharsis, and it helped me start the trudge along a slow, painful path to healing up and learning how to be happier with myself. Because of that, it'll always be a little special to me.

[M] I'd have to agree with the cooking part! :P
It's sad to know that you've had to go through a lot of hardships, but we're glad you're fit and fine today!
As far as your story goes, I'd say that you've gotten down every bit of the essence you've wanted to! It's one of my favourite books now!
Have you always wanted to include mythical elements into your stories? And why werewolf and not vampire?