Juli McCarthy
Identity Theory's Featured Author for August/September, 2000.
Juli has a website of her own, "A Slice of Life on Wry." Her Identity Theory articles include: "Presidential Material?" and "An American Precedent."
Juli McCarthy was born on New Year's Eve, a fact her mother still holds against her. She is the eldest child in a large, loud, and wholly dysfunctional Italian family. After an unimpressive education, she left school and took a number of unimpressive jobs, dated a number of unimpressive men, and generally behaved badly until 1988, when she went on a blind date with a very nice man. In 1989, she married the very nice man, and they live in the Chicago suburbs with their ten-year-old daughter and some cats.
Juli has written articles for Jewelry Crafts magazine, Lapidary Journal, her local newspaper, and several web zines, including Intrepid Media, Identity Theory and the gone-but-not-forgotten Comic Sutra.
She is also an accomplished polymer clay crafter whose work has been featured in Jewelry Crafts and Lapidary Journal magazines. Under the name Mockingbird Studio, she produces one-of-a kind and limited edition polymer clay jewelry.
When she is not trying to wrestle her word processor to the ground, or making a mess in her studio, Juli enjoys reading, watching movies, crocheting, needlework, cooking and listening to bad 1970s music. She is an active volunteer at her daughter's elementary school and for the Girl Scouts, Sybaquay Council.
i.d. interview
i.d theory: Bush or Gore, and why?
Juli: If these are my only choices, I'd have to go with Gore right now, although I am not all that fond of him. The agenda of the Republican party as a whole sets my teeth on edge, and my knee-jerk Democratism tends to rear its ugly head when backed into a corner. If I had my way, I'd like to see the entire electoral process changed. I never get my way, though.
i.d. theory: Do you find similarities between the process of molding clay and the process of writing?
Juli: Actually, I never thought about it, but there are similarities. In both cases, I am usually surprised by the end results. I usually set off determinedly in one direction, only to find myself completely captivated by some neat trick of the light, and cheerfully discard whatever it was I was going to do in the first place. This also applies to housecleaning, incidentally, where it is significantly less appreciated by my spouse.
i.d. theory: How have you used the internet as a tool for your freelance writing career?
Juli: Oh, gawd. How DON'T I use it? Specifically, I do research. I find writers' resource sites that list submission guidelines for every publication you can think of and some you can't even believe; I look up things that support any opinion I happen to have at the time or am willing to consider; I follow links everywhere. The best part of the Internet, though, is the feedback. It is immediate and personal and extremely well-suited to writing.
i.d. theory: What do you read?
Juli: I will quite literally read ANYTHING fictional. I generally have five or six books going at a time. Lately, it's been Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series, and Janet Evanovich's hilarious Stephanie Plum books. All-time favorites are To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Summer of '42 by Herman Raucher, and The Annes - Rice, McCaffrey and Perry. My non-fiction reading consists mainly of magazines, newspapers and craft books.
i.d. theory: If you were to have another child, would you name it after identitytheory.com?
Juli: If I were to have another child, I would first file a lawsuit against my husband's urologist. I paid good money not to have to ever think about THAT question again.