An Interview with Julie Cross

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An Interview with Julie Cross

julie cross
The Reading Cafe is happy to welcome Julie Cross as our guest today. Julie has her second book, Vortex being released today. 

Check out our review of Vortex below this interview. 

Direct link to Review: Vortex

Let’s meet Julie.

 

Julie, we at the Reading Café would like to thank you for taking the time to answer our questions. 

TRC: Please tell us about yourself?

Julie: I’m a mom of 3 kids. I live in Central Illinois with my husband and kids. Before writing full-time, I was a program director at the YMCA for the gymnastics program.

TRC: When and how did you first become interested in writing?

Julie: I started writing in May of 2009. It began with a short story in a notebook that eventually turned into a full novel after a couple months. Then I began learning about the publication process and writing more stories. A year after starting I had an offer for three book deal with Thomas Dunne Book/St. Martin’s Press.

TRC: Tempest was your first book ever published? How did it feel when you found out you were going to be published?

Julie: It took a while to sink in. A week after I’d gotten an agent and negotiated the book deal, I walked into a book store in the Indianapolis airport while waiting to pick up my niece and it hit me that my book would be in a store eventually. That was a surreal feeling.

TRC: Can you please tell us the premise of your Tempest series, and how you came up with the idea?

Julie: The concept for Tempest came in layers as I worked with my now editor, Brendan Deneen. My idea started with a sort of time travel story that was also about aliens and gymnastics. His idea was to acquire a teen version of The Time Traveler’s Wife. Tempest is story that emerged from both our creative brains.

VortexTRC: Vortex is the second book in this series, which was released yesterday.   Can you please give a brief description of this story?

Julie: (TEMPEST spoiler Alert!)

Vortex picks up at the exact moment Tempest ends, walks you think the big decision Jackson had to make at the end of the first installment and his goal to join the CIA division called that deals with all things time travel. You get tiny peaks at the journal Jackson keeps while going through his first few months of training and then, very early in the novel, you are thrown right into a very dangerous CIA mission.

Links to order Vortex: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / The Book Depository

TRC: Besides the third and final book in your Tempest Trilogy, do you have any ideas of what you would like to do next? Are you interested in doing any other genre?

Julie: So far, I only want to write young adult. I have lots of post-Tempest ideas but I’m not which is going to be the one to follow. I love realistic young adult fiction and I’d love to branch out into that sub-genre as well.

TRC: If your book does make the movie screen, since you have optioned the film rights, do you have preferences as to whom you would like to play your characters?

Julie:  I’ve only thought about it for fun. Timing is a huge factor in this. I love Logan Lerman and also Drew Roy. Dianna Agron would make a great Holly.

TRC: What is your writing process?  Do you have a favorite place or time you like to write?

Julie: The only consistent about my writing process is that it’s always inconsistent. I’m really very flexible when it comes to a writing time and place. I have found, now that I’m no longer working a full time job, most of my writing time tends to be between the hours of 8am and 3pm while my kids are at school.

TRC: Is there a book that gave you the inspiration to write?

Julie:All the books I’ve read have contributed somewhat to my inspiration to write. I love escaping into a story and being able to leave myself behind. I feel the same way when I write.

 LIGHTNING ROUND:

FAVORITE FOOD: Snow crab legs

FAVORITE DESSERT: Cheese cake

MILK OR DARK CHOCOLATE: Milk but I’m not a big chocolate person.

FAVORITE AUTHOR: Can’t pick one –
Judy Blume, John Green, J.K. Rowling, David Levithan

FAVORITE BOOK: Little Women

FAVORITE FICTIONAL CHARACTER (not your own): Hermione Granger

LAST MOVIE YOU SAW: Magic Mike

Thank you, Julie for answering our questions. The Reading Café wishes you the best of luck with Vortex.  Keep us informed about your upcoming releases. We look forward to working with you again.

If you want to learn more about Julie, you can find her at the following links:
Website:
Twitter:
Facebook:
Goodreads:

 

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15 thoughts on “An Interview with Julie Cross”

  1. thank you for this wonderful interview. I usually do not read ya, but i like some sort of time travel premise. what happens during the summer months, when the kids are not in school. when do you write 🙂

    • Last summer the kids went to summer day camps for different sports and art, dance, science…those kinds of things. Two of my kids are in a year round school so they only have 6 weeks of summer. Any school breaks throw me off, though and I do get behind during those times.

  3. Wonderful interview, Julie and Barb. I always enjoy reading reactions of first time authors when they see there book on the shelves. But I supposed that feeling never changes for each book.

    I loved Magic Mike.

  4. Terrific interview, Julie and Barb. Taking care of three kids and writing cannot be easy. It must be rewarding to have just started to write, and already have two books published. I do not read a lot of YA, but your series sounds good. I too like Cheesecake and Hermoine Granger.

    • Thanks! And maybe my next book should be called Cheesecake and Hermione Granger. I could have a bestseller on my hands. Who wouldn’t love that combination 🙂

  6. Great review ladies!! Thanks, Julie, for stopping by and letting us get to know a bit about you!! And, I think I may be the only woman left who has NOT seen Magic Mike!! LOL!!

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