Julie Hearn
About Author
Julie started her working life as a journalist. She wrote for a daily tabloid newspaper in Australia before returning to England and working as a features editor and 'mother and baby' columnist. After her daughter Tilly was born, she started to train as a teacher at Westminster College, Oxford, where she was taught by Philip Pullman, but switched to English when she realised teaching wasn't for her. She then went on to complete a Masters in Women's Studies at Mansfield College, Oxford University; the thesis of which became the basis for her first novel, Follow Me Down. She lives in Abingdon.
The Merrybegot is her second novel.
Author link
Interview
Julie studied 17th century witchcraft while at Oxford University, 'I was fascinated by the terrifying blend of circumstance, prejudice, superstition and misogyny that sent so many women and girls to the gallows. I wanted to explore what it would been like for a young unconventional girl to have lived in that kind of atmosphere. The West Country, with its wealth of folklore, seemed the perfect setting. And when I found a reference to "merrybegots" in a book of West Country spellcraft I was away...'
