Successful – Julia Golding – Fantasy Author, former Diplomat (UK), Conflict Resolution Activist (U.N.)

Golding / Golden / Goulding et al Family History on Facebook


Golding - Julia - UK author 2013
Julia Golding, author and former diplomat (UK). Photo by Julia Golding.

Julia Golding

Born: March 1969

Julia is married with three children. She also publishes under two pen names: Joss Stirling and Eve Edwards. In 2007 she was named as one of  ’25 Writers of the Future’.

Family History: unresearched. Essex County, England is home to some of the very first families known to carry the Golding name in the 12th century.

You can find her many books online at Amazon.com — her bibliography is below.

Biography from her author page:

My journey to becoming an author has been a roundabout one, taking in many other careers. I grew up on the edge of Epping Forest (Essex, UK) and was that dreamy kind of child who was always writing stories. After reading English at Cambridge, I decided to find out as much as I could about the wider world so joined the Foreign Office and served in Poland. My work as a diplomat took me from the high point of town twinning in the Tatra Mountains to the low of inspecting the bottom of a Silesian coal mine.

On leaving Poland, I exchanged diplomacy for academia and took a doctorate in the literature of the English Romantic Period at Oxford. I then joined Oxfam as a lobbyist on conflict issues, campaigning at the UN and with governments to lessen the impact of conflict on civilians living in war zones – a cause about which I still feel very passionate.

Married with three children, I now live in Oxford between two rivers, surrounded by gargoyles, beautiful sandstone buildings and ancient trees. I plan my books while walking our dog, Caspar, on Port Meadow by the Thames or Isis.

My first novel, ‘The Diamond of Drury Lane’, won the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize 2006 and the Nestle Children’s Book Prize 2006 (formerly known as the Smarties Prize). I was also chosen by Waterstone’s in 2007 as one of their ‘Twenty-five authors for the future’. ‘Empty Quarter’ was longlisted for the Carnegie Award 2009; ‘Wolf Cry’ in 2010. In the US, ‘Secret of the Sirens’ won the honor book medal of the Green Earth Book Award.


Golding - Julia - UK author - the Middle Passage book cover

Bibliography under her own name, Julia Golding

Cat Royal  series
The Diamond of Drury Lane
Cat among the Pigeons
Den of Thieves
Cat O’Nine Tails
Black Heart of Jamaica
The Middle Passage
Cat’s Cradle

The Companions Quartet  series
Secret of the Sirens
The Gorgon’s Gaze
Mines of the Minotaur
The Chimera’s Curse
Darcie Lock
Ringmaster
Empty Quarter
Deadlock

Dragonfly series
Dragonfly
The Glass Swallow

Universal Companions series
The Water Thief


You are welcome to add to or to correct this story by contacting: Bill Golden, Norfolk1956@gmail.com

BTW – I look forward to sharing your stories, photos and in-search-of quests. Contact me at the email address above.

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