Julia Bell (author)


Julia Bell is a British novelist and poet living in North London. She is Senior Lecturer at Birkbeck and the founder and Project Director of the annual publication the Mechanics’ Institute Review and the website "The Writers Hub" .
She has published two novels for young adultsMassive and Dirty Work – and the bestselling Creative Writing Coursebook as well as poetry and short stories in various magazines and anthologies. She is an alumnus of the University of East Anglia MA programme and a member of the Birmingham-based Tindal Street Fiction Group.

Works

;Massive
Her first novel, Massive, was published in the UK in 2002 and the US in 2005. The novel is set in Birmingham and deals with a mother daughter relationship in which the mother is suffering from anorexia. Imogen Russell Williams describes the book in The Guardian:
"Julia Bell's 2002 novel Massive focuses on Carmen, the unlucky teenage daughter of rail-thin, glamorous, ambitious Maria, who oscillates between anorexia and bulimia like a nightmarish pinball, calling Carmen "Miss Piggy" and castigating her for hoarding sweet wrappers behind her headboard. Eventually, Maria inculcates Carmen with the seductive delusion that mastery of food equals mastery of fate, and the book culminates in a dreadful duel between mother and daughter, both desperate to prove themselves stronger, more powerful and more in control of their fabulous destiny by refusing to cave in and eat." According to WorldCat, the book is in over 430 libraries
;Dirty Work
Her second novel, Dirty Work, published in the UK & US in 2007 deals with issues of human trafficking, especially for the sex trade. The book was well-received with Stephanie Merritt describing it in The Observer as:
"Julia Bell's gritty second novel […