Julie Hodgson

 

 

Children’s author Julie Hodgson , Her sights set on the children of today, helping them with the written word. Encouraging through story telling times at schools and play groups. Her second early teen novel has just come out and is receiving lots of attention.


Her latest book to be translated into Portuguese is ZodoFF a superb children’s sci fi novel... Julie takes the reader yet again on a journey; the earth is in a mess, being destroyed by the greed and avarice of man, the deforestation of the trees all over the globe has diminished the animal kingdom too... The power of 3 will be put to use to help the earth get back on track.

Julie takes the hand of the child and guides them through the adventure with Jerry, Frank and Lucy in an easy read manner as she always caters for this age group with care. She has often written for expatriate children or children whom English is a second language.

Julie Hodgson aged 48 now living in Portugal with her husband John, has travelled extensively all over the world writing for children. Working on the children’s page of the Kuwaiti times for about a year. Just before the first Gulf conflict in 1989. And the story tellers page for the Dumfries and Galloway standard, and the press and journal Banff Standard, plus numerous other papers and short story books to her credit.


She has also been featured twice in the Portuguese newspaper Aponte.
She now settles for a quieter life and has more time to write stories, and is in popular demand for storytelling and has visited many schools in Portugal

She has just put together a book of childrens Poetry called Rhymes for smiling times, and will be out very soon.  http://www.juliehodgson.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PageOneLit.com: Where did you grow up and was reading and writing a part of your life? Who were your earliest influences and why?

Julie Hodgson: I was born and grew up in the Burton On Trent  Staffordshire, Then the rest of my childhood in  a seaside town of Mablethorpe in Lincolnshire..UK. But my family is originated in Scotland.

 

I was an avid reader and also wrote stories and poems from a very early age; my mother and my daughter both write too.

 

Enid Blyton was my favorite author.  I loved her easy style of writing, she was easy to read and the stories were proper adventures and not particularly fantasy stories, so I could put myself in the heroine’s shoes... I also loved C.S. Lewis and Emily Bronte.

 

 

 

 

 

PageOneLit.com: Why do you write? 

Julie Hodgson: I write because I have a love for the written word, we can turn a jumble of words into a fantastic adventure with the tap of a key board or stroke of a pen…

 

I love making stories up, and poems that make children laugh and most of the time they are made especially to read out loud to children.

 

 

 

 

 

 

PageoneLit.com: Briefly discuss your new book Juno and The Windwalker. Who is Juno?

Julie Hodgson: Juno is a young boy, the story set in Stone Age times, very special young man who is of kind natured and has wisdom far beyond his years. He is a character that any boy reading it could be him, Juno learns that creatures he sees in the Plaines of Durromar can become extinct in a blink of natures eye, he meets the Windwalker as is given special tasks by him at the tree of Yggdrasil, which is a special tree that is the time keeper, Juno will not know this until it is time for him to have the knowledge. Juno is part of a series, in which they can follow him as he grows up and moves through time.

 

 

 

 

 

PageOneLit.com: What is about the children's genre you enjoy?

 

Julie Hodgson: I love the way one can write and build on a story that would hopefully capture the Childs imagination, put them in the driver’s seat, to make them heroes or heroines. I find the subject an easy one to write for.

 

 

 

 

 

 

PageOneLit.com: ZodoFF The Power of 3 -- Discuss this sci-fi adventure for young teens novel and how it is different from other teen sci-fi books ?

Julie Hodgson: It is so very different from the other stories I have written and it has two important messages in the story line, one for the adults and one for the children...3 children are to try and sort the planet out without the aid of adults, just the Blues Crew from another planet that have laid in wait for the right children to come along to help them...In a world of rules and regulations which stop children playing, health and safety rules gone and the politicians being war mongrels, makes this a hard job for these kids. The good thing is though; those 3 children from every city all over the world would be doing the same thing. So it’s rather different from other sci fi, as usually the aliens are out to get everyone, in this story it is far from that scenario, they actually aid the 3 main characters in the book.

 

 

 

 

 

PageOneLit.com:  Discuss your novel Polly Mae. 

Julie Hodgson: Polly Mae is a typical Scottish girl of 11; she has parents at home who love her and has a normal childhood... She finds a suitcase on a beach, in which the contents of the case takes her to foreign lands, and beyond.  With the help of her father they extract photos from an old damaged brownie box camera and this opens a Pandora’s box of history played out before her eyes...She learns about the holocaust and gets to meet one of the victims in the story...The suitcase holds the key to bringing the present and the horrific tales of the past together.

 

 

 

 

 

PageOneLit.com Discuss The Mothaich.

 

Julie Hodgson: The Mothaich , Centers around Essalina Harraway who is eight years old, she has a secret and on her 8^th birthday the secret becomes known to her. She is guarded by a watcher, who takes her off on journeys to a realm she had never thought existed before… Time stands still when she is away and she visits the most beautiful of places some that inspire her some that will test her courage. As she faces the evil Bruxa Ja rh and the Zangada tribes and other strange creatures in this very different world that the ones she comes from...

 

The story is set in a fantasy land, which gives just enough description for you to add and use your own imagination on what the characters are like.

 

 

 

 

 

 

PageOneLit.com:  You are a multi-published author - What do you know now as an author that you did not know when you published your first novel

 

Julie Hodgson: I know that it’s not easy sailing, if you want your book "out there" you have to work hard, learn to take criticism and accept failings when considered necessary and carry on at all times, never giving up on your dream to see your hard work in book form.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PageOneLit.com: What do you hope to achieve with your books? 
 

Julie Hodgson:   I would really love all children to want to read books, to understand that they are powerful and so very important in our lives.  A book for every child all over the world! Now that would be an achievement!

 

 

 

 

    

 

PageOneLit.com: What was the last book you read?

 

Julie Hodgson: I read The Plantation by Chris Kuzneski

 

 

 

 

 

 

PageOneLit.com: What's next?

 

Julie Hodgson: A 3^rd book on Juno, which will be part of a series, also a few magazine articles I have been asked to do.

 

And I am half way through a grown up story fiction novel, my first!

 

 

 

 

 

 

PageOneLit.com: Do you have any hobbies? What are they? How do they enhance your writing?

 

 

Julie Hodgson: My hobbies are having a jolly good walk in the nature that surrounds our house in central Portugal, which always clears my head ready for new stories to come popping through.

 

 I do a lot of storytelling on local radio. Love reading books, not romance ones though.

 

I also like to visit restaurants trying local Portuguese cuisine.

 

I enjoy my family, that’s my ultimate hobby...