Julie Hensley fell in love with writing in her youth. Her mother was a librarian in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia.

In a house full of kids, connecting with her mom over the book she wanted to write was a surefire way to get quality time.

“I would tell her stories, and she would write them down and fold the pages, and then I would draw the picture,” Hensley said. “So from the time I was really little, I had stories that I wanted to tell.”

She kept up storytelling through middle school journals, which turned in poems in high school.

“They were really driven by rhyme, they were really angsty,” Hensley said. “And then in college, I think, was when the flip really got switched.”

From there her passion continued to grow, leading her to write fiction, publish her work and become a fa

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