The Official Julie Lake Website

The first step is listening to the stories people have to tell. I used to pester my Grandma Lake all the time about what it was like in the “olden days.” She told me that she got fussed at for climbing trees and getting her good clothes dirty.

One of her chores as a child was to empty the chamber pot every morning. (In case you’ve never heard of a chamber pot, it’s a ceramic bowl where people went to the bathroom on cold, rainy nights in the days before families had indoor toilets.) Grandma Lake said she didn’t mind dealing with the “pee” but she hated it when someone had gone “poo.”

1900 Chamber Pot

I’ve always loved wandering through old houses and exploring all their nooks and crannies. If you pay attention to old houses, you’ll discover that they have stories to tell about the people who lived there.

If you want to become a writer, it’s also important to be a good reader. Reading lots of different books will help you learn how to shape a story, develop the plot or action, and describe characters.

	Before I became a bookworm
Troubles with Reading
Reading for me, however, did not come easy.
I was very nearsighted and it took awhile for my teachers and family to realize that I couldn’t see the chalkboard.
I had to take remedial reading classes, which I hated. They had this little projector where the words went by really fast. They’d zip through a story and ask you questions like, “What color was Tommy’s balloon?”
I couldn’t read fast enough to realize that Tommy even had a stupid balloon, much less figure out what color it was!

Creating My Own Books
I started writing stories and making little books in grade school. I “published” them by giving copies to my parents and my six brothers and sisters. They were all very nice about my writing except for my evil brother Jimmy. (You’ll read more about him later.)
My first job - working for AUSTIN magazine	At my high school in Dallas, I worked on the student newspaper. I went on to earn a journalism degree from the University of Texas at Austin. In the years since, I’ve written everything from restaurant reviews to captions to magazine articles about car insurance. While researching a story, I ran across several sobering memoirs of the Galveston hurricane of 1900, which remains the most deadly natural disaster in U.S. history. The stories and photos haunted me. I kept wondering why so many people died in the storm and how those who survived found the strength to rebuild the island. Eventually, I wove these questions into a manuscript.
Since TCU Press published my book in Spring 2003, I’ve been busy finishing my murder mystery for adults and starting a new project, a young adult book set in the 1960s. I also take time to visit schools and libraries and talk to children and adults about writing.