I’m Julia F. Clifford, an Italian writer currently living in County Kildare, Ireland.
I write adult mysteries, speculative fiction, children’s stories and fanfiction. Different shelves, perhaps, but the same storyteller: I am drawn to hidden histories, folklore, belonging and characters who discover that the world is stranger than they believed. Or perhaps, as fellow fanfiction writers have told me, I am a plot queen who breeds plot bunnies and has no higher purpose than finding new ways to torture her favourite characters. My original characters have learned this too.
I hold a BA (Hons) in English Language and Literature. My professional life has taken me through banking, customer service and business administration, while my enthusiasm for different fandoms led me into graphic design and fan publishing. I have worked as a writer and designer for a fan magazine and contributed articles and stories to a range of fanzines. Each of these experiences has left its mark on my life and, inevitably, on my writing.
I spent the first twenty-nine years of my life in Italy before deciding to pursue my own dreams and move to the United Kingdom, where I met the man who would become my husband. A marriage and two children later, I followed him to Ireland when the changing political climate made me feel less welcome in the country I had chosen as my home.
I now live happily with my family in County Kildare, dividing my time between writing, listening to audiobooks, researching obscure legends, working full-time, helping my husband with his business, acting as chauffeur to my children and waiting on a cat who isn’t technically mine but has decided that she lives in my house. She has claimed my sofa and even my husband for herself. Like all cats do, to be fair. Perhaps not the husband, but certainly the sofa.
As for the writing, my short story The Time Befana Saved Christmas appears in the anthology A Right Cozy Christmas Crime. My other work includes short fiction recognised in writing competitions and projects for adult, young adult and younger readers. I am also a member of Sisters in Crime, the Society of Authors and Jericho Writers.
“I write about the old stories that survive beneath modern life, waiting for somebody to notice them.”
