Julia Bertagna
About Author
Julie Bertagna was born in Ayrshire, but grew up near Glasgow. Her first published fiction was while she was still at school she wrote rave reviews of her brother's rock band for the local paper, which was pure fiction, as the band were terrible! After completing an MA Honours degree in English Language and Literature, she worked for a while as the editor of a small magazine, then as a teacher and a freelance feature writer for major Scottish newspapers. Her first novel for teenagers, The Spark Gap, was accepted for publication around the same time as her daughter was born, so she decided to concentrate on the baby and writing.
At exactly the same time that JK Rowling was snatching time to write in Edinburgh cafes while her baby slept, Julie was doing exactly the same thing in Glasgow cafes! She became a coffee addict and is sure that she wouldn't have had the energy to write without it! It was very hard to find time and energy but a Writer's Bursary from the Scottish Arts Council saved the day by giving her funds to buy some childcare and so giving her time to write. It was the second highest grant they have ever given a children's writer.
That bursary allowed her to write Soundtrack, which was a breakthrough novel that received great review coverage. Michael Thorn called it the best written teenage book of the decade and it won the Scottish Arts Council Children's Book Award in 2000. Since then, Dolphin Boy, a book for younger readers, was shortlisted for the NASEN Awards and the Blue Peter Book Awards, and The Ice Cream Machine, another novel for younger readers, has been on TV.
Julie lives in Glasgow with her family and writes in a tiny, hundred year old wine cellar under the stairs. Her house is on the Hill of Doves, with the gothic university steeple on the next hilltop - both of which feature in Exodus. She also likes to travel as much as possible, especially to Italy, where my husband has family - and there's lots of great coffee!
Exodus was published under the Young Picador imprint in August 2002, and was longlisted for the Guardian Children's Fiction Award, the Wirral Paperback of the Year 2003, the Carnegie Medal 2003, the Lancashire Children's Book Award 2003 and shortlisted for the Portsmouth Book Award 2004 and the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year 2003.
The Opposite of Chocolate was also published under the Young Picador in October 2003 as a Trade Paperback and in July 2004 as a Paperback. It was longlisted for the Carnegie Medal 2004.
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