Julie Smith (novelist)


Julie Smith is an American mystery writer, the author of nineteen novels and several short stories. She received the 1991 Edgar Award for Best Novel for her sixth book, New Orleans Mourning.

Biography

Born November 25, 1944 in Annapolis, Maryland she grew up in Savannah, Georgia. She graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1965 then worked as a journalist for sixteen years, beginning as a reporter for the New Orleans Times-Picayune. She then moved on to the San Francisco Chronicle, where she eventually became the first woman hired for the newsroom since World War II and spent the next ten years as a general assignment and court reporter. She later worked for the Santa Barbara News-Press, for Banana Republic as an advertising and catalogue copy writer, and for the San Francisco District Attorney's office as a public information officer.
Smith quit the Chronicle in 1979 to form a freelance writing and editing firm called Invisible Ink with several other aspiring fiction writers, including Marcia Muller. In 1982 Smith published her first novel.
In 1991, she became the first American woman since 1956 to win the Edgar for Best Novel. New Orleans Noir, an anthology she edited, was published in 2007. Following a long gap after P.I. On A Hot Tin Roof, her latest novels are Murder on Magazine and The Big Crazy.
For some years, Smith lived in the Faubourg Marigny section of New Orleans.
In 2006 she founded Writerstrack.com, a course of writing instruction done through conference calls, which in 2011 she turned into an ebook titled "Writing Your Way."
In 2010 she founded her own publishing company, booksBnimble, which focuses on video-enhanced ebooks.

Works

Novels

Skip Langdon

Smith's 1990 novel New Orleans Mourning won the 1991 Edgar Award for "Best Novel" and was nominated for the Anthony Award for the same honor in the same year.