My ALLi author guest this episode is Julie Day, an autistic author and advocate from London who writes children's books featuring autistic characters finding confidence — the kind of books she never had growing up undiagnosed. Her path to indie publishing began with a recurring dream she had to write down, and it carried her through a late Asperger's diagnosis and a life-threatening heart illness she turned into a book to help others.
Listen to the Inspirational Indie Author Interview: Julie Day
About the Host
Howard Lovy is an author, developmental editor, and writing coach with a long career in journalism and publishing. He works with writers at many stages of their careers, with a focus on helping them develop their ideas and strengthen their work while preserving their unique voices. He lives in Northern Michigan.
About the Guest
Julie Day is an autistic author and advocate who mainly writes children's books featuring autistic characters finding confidence, as well as articles about autism, and creates videos about autism and being autistic. She also writes memoir-style guides about a heart condition and autism, and adult mysteries featuring a character with a heart condition. You can find her on her website, Instagram, and YouTube.
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Read the Transcript
Julie Day: Hi, I'm Julie Day from London, UK. I'm an autistic author and advocate, and I write mainly children's books featuring autistic characters finding confidence. I also write memoir-style guides about heart health related conditions and autism, and I've just started writing cozy mysteries for adults.
Growing Up Undiagnosed
Howard Lovy: That's great. It sounds like you do an awful lot. Let's first go back into your childhood and tell me where you grew up. Was reading and writing always a part of your life?
Julie Day: Well, actually, I grew up just up the road from where I'm living now in, I think it was called a maisonette flat, top of this road in London, UK. I was born there until 1977. I was six and a half. We moved to the house where I'm in now, and I've been living here ever since. My childhood, it wasn't a normal childhood, for two reasons. Mainly for me, I didn't know at the time that I was autistic. So that shaped my life, going to school, primary and what you call senior school, how I was taken there. But also with my dad, back in '79, '80, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and that really affected him, and that affected my mom and the rest of the family.
Howard Lovy: So you had a hard time growing up. Now, was autism just not diagnosed for you back then?
Julie Day: No. I grew up in the '70s and '80s, and autism and Asperger's, which I was diagnosed with, wasn't even really known then. It wasn't until the '90s that it started to be more known and people started to become more aware of what it was. But by that time, I'd started full-time work.
Howard Lovy: But did you always know that you were just a little bit different, but there was no word for it at the time?
Julie Day: I just thought I was shy and quiet, is why I was found different. Autism wasn't on the radar. I just didn't know anything about it.
A Recurring Dream Becomes a Novel
Howard Lovy: Right. Well, so then you began writing around 1990, and it was after experiencing a recurring dream, I read. So what was it about that dream that made you feel you had to put it into words?
Julie Day: Well, I'd had this dream going back, late '90s, I think it was, when I was at work. It continued over, like, three nights in a row. And I thought the only way to get it out of my head was to write it down. So once I started writing, all the ideas started to come, and eventually it turned into a novel, which is still on my computer and nothing happened to it.
Howard Lovy: Yeah, I think a lot of people have first novels that are still on their computers. But backtracking a little bit, what did you do before that, before you began writing? What did you do for a living?
Julie Day: My one main full-time job was what I call working student services at a college campus, which was at one of the main hospitals in London. I did student admin, that sort of writing letters to and for students regarding their course, which was medical and dental students. So that's what I was doing with the admin there, plus the reception side of it. So when they came into the office, I'd be the first person to go up and say, “Hello. What do you want?” sort of thing. That's what I did.
Howard Lovy: So you were doing a little bit of writing for your work. But what you began in 1990 was a different kind of writing. So tell me more about this dream that you had to put into words.
Julie Day: Oh, gosh. The dream, basically the premise of the dream was there was this young woman who'd lost her memory from having an accident or being attacked, can't remember, but she lost her memory. She didn't know where she was or who she was, and she was found by a man, he might have been a little bit older than her, who helped her get better and find her family for her. She returned to her family, but because she couldn't remember who she was or anybody from her past life, she couldn't remember them. And so she left her family to go and live with this man, and that was the dream.
Howard Lovy: That's great. So you discovered that you had this hidden talent of inventing stories anyway, right?
Julie Day: I mean, I'd always liked English at school. When I was at primary school or junior school, I always liked writing stories when we could write stories, even though I felt too shy to read them out loud in class. And again at secondary school, your senior school, I liked writing stories in English lessons there. And then as I got older, I went to work, and the writing just stopped for a while.
Howard Lovy: Well, from what I know about Asperger's, and I know a little bit about it because my daughter has it, she's in her 30s now, sometimes there's one incredible talent that they have. Do you think writing is that for you?
Julie Day: I think so, yes. Definitely.
Howard Lovy: Yeah. And these days, I don't even think they call it Asperger's anymore. I think it's just part of the autism spectrum disorder.
Julie Day: Yeah, they do. When I was diagnosed in 2011, Asperger's was still part of the spectrum. I think it was a couple of years later that it was completely changed and it went off the spectrum and they changed it. I don't know what it's like over where you are in America, but over here in the UK, they've changed it to, like, three levels. Level one, level two, and level three.
Early Success in Competitions
Howard Lovy: So then in the early 2000s you began placing your writing in competitions for crime fiction and children's writing, and you saw a little bit of success there, right?
Julie Day: I did, yes. It was a competition, short story competitions in a writing magazine. The first one I entered was for crime. I think I did a children's story for that one, and I was shortlisted, and that spurred me on to enter, maybe a year later, a writing for children one, and I became second in that one. And I thought, “Oh, okay, I can write for children.” And that's where it started, writing for children. I started writing children's books and it went from there.
Howard Lovy: Do you have a special kind of a bond with children? Like your ability to speak with them?
Julie Day: I wouldn't say an ability, but I think it may be with who I am, with my being autistic. I find I can get on better with the younger generation rather than my peers, like people my own age.
Becoming an Indie Author
Howard Lovy: Yeah. And there's something about children that, you know, they're not as cynical and they're more open to ideas. So in 2010 you were made redundant, and I think that's a euphemism for you lost your job, and you became an indie author the following year. So how did losing your job affect your decision to take writing and publishing more seriously?
Julie Day: Maybe because I had the time to do it. I mean, I'd already been writing when I was at work, like during lunchtime. I'd been writing children's books then. And then when I was made redundant, that was when also Kindle eBooks took off. And I'd been reading a lot about Kindle eBooks and all the authors who had been having great success in publishing their own works as eBooks. And I thought, “Oh, that's a good way to do it.” And I'd been writing one children's series at the time, and then I suddenly had this idea for another, like, teen fantasy book, which I thought would have been an ideal length for an e-book. And that's when I started to become an indie author. I started writing that story, which turned out to be my first published e-book way back in 2011. And it just went from there, and I found once I started writing full time, writing what I wanted to write when I could write, and basically having control of everything, it just continued.
Writing Autistic Characters for Children
Howard Lovy: Now, your books often feature autistic children developing confidence and friendships and communication skills. How important is that, to realistically depict autistic children?
Julie Day: For me, I believe it's very important, because over the last couple of years when I've been doing events and I've been selling my children's autism books, I have actually been told by the parents my books are needed. And I have actually seen that, especially the age range that I write, seven to nine, there are hardly any children's books out there for autistic children featuring autistic characters. And I just want to write and publish them so these children, like I was, can feel seen, celebrated, accepted, and understood in books, something that I never had as a child.
The Appeal of Magic Realism
Howard Lovy: Yeah. It's important to be able to see yourself in books you read. Now, one other element to many of your books is magic realism, and for children and adults. What got you interested in that? And does the magical element allow you to express something that a strictly realistic story might not?
Julie Day: I think it does. Going back to the short story competition for children that I came second in in 2005, that actually had a magical element to it. And I think at the time I'd also started reading for children as well with magical elements in it. And it just appealed to me that I could have a magical element that could help children and adults find confidence in life, give them hope somehow in life. And I found it, and I still find it, easier to write books with magical elements in it.
Howard Lovy: And it's just fun. It's fun to write and fun to read, too.
An Official Diagnosis
Howard Lovy: Now, in 2011, you were officially diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. So how did that diagnosis change, or did it change, your understanding of yourself and then the stories you wanted to tell?
Julie Day: Well, at the time I didn't really know much about Asperger's and autism. What I read at the time was articles that my mum had collected, which was basically like the communication side of it, finding it challenging to make friends in life, communicate with other people, lack of eye contact. But when I read that, something just clicked with me of how I was at school, not being able to make friends, finding it too difficult to read out loud in class, and the communication side of it, and it just went, oh. So it gave me a reason and an understanding of how it had shaped my life until then. And that's all it did. But it's only been the last few years, when I've been connecting with other autism advocates over social media and seeing their posts about different aspects of being autistic, that as well as writing about it, I've come to understand even more about autism and how it's affecting my life.
Howard Lovy: Well, you're doing a wonderful job explaining it to me, so you must have gotten over your fear of speaking in public.
Julie Day: I don't think so. I'm getting there. I'm getting there.
Surviving a Life-Threatening Illness
Howard Lovy: Now, you don't just write about autism. You also recount a life-threatening illness you had during the pandemic. Can you tell me more about that and how you turned that frightening experience into a book to help other people?
Julie Day: Well, yes, as you said, during the pandemic in 2020, I had this very serious illness, which at the time I didn't know what it was. I'd been losing weight. I had back pain, tiredness, which I found out was from anemia, and all different other odd symptoms. And I'd had tests for this and tests for that, and more blood tests and scans. And by the end of that year, they still didn't know what was wrong. It wasn't 'til February 2021 that I had a blood test that revealed it was life-threatening, and I had to go into hospital, and that was where I spent nearly eight weeks in three hospitals. I had open heart surgery because I had endocarditis, which is infection of the inner lining of the heart. And it had nearly destroyed a heart valve, which I had to have replaced. And after I got home and I was recovering, the memories were still there, and I thought, at the time, it was still too raw for me to write about. Even though the surgeon at the time said to me, knowing that I was an author, “You should write about it, Julie.” No, thank you. But then much later on I thought, well, maybe it would heal me to write about it, and in a way it did heal me a bit to get it out. A lot of it is still in my head, and I've still got the scars. But in a way it did heal me to write about it, and it's now out there hopefully helping other people who might need it.
Marketing and Making Personal Connections
Howard Lovy: What kind of marketing do you do for your books?
Julie Day: I found what works for me. I've tried loads of things, podcast interviews like this one. Even though I haven't got any sales from it, I do find that sort of gets me out there. But I have been doing, like, local fairs, libraries, schools in the area, where I've been selling my children's books. I've been doing autism fairs where I've been selling my books. They are the two things that I have found that work for me, and I'll probably continue doing those sort of things.
Howard Lovy: Yeah. So you make personal connections with your readers?
Julie Day: Yeah.
Building an Author Brand Around Autism
Howard Lovy: You've been an ALLi member since its early days, and you've published many books and series independently. What have you learned about building an author brand around autism?
Julie Day: More about myself, and more about being autistic. When I first started writing, being an indie author, it wasn't about autism. That came about 2014, '15. While I've been writing the children's autism books, I have been finding out more about myself, more about autism. So as I've been finding out more about myself and about autism, it's been giving me the inspiration and the encouragement to pitch other places about being autistic and autism, and other ways to raise awareness and acceptance of autism to other people.
Howard Lovy: Well, what kind of advice would you give to other authors, specifically autistic authors, in how to write and market their books?
Julie Day: With other autistic authors, I would say seriously consider self-publishing your books, 'cause it gives you not just the control of everything, of how and when you can do it, but different ways of how you can market it.
Howard Lovy: Well, this has been a fascinating conversation, Julie. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us about it.
Julie Day: Thank you very much, Howard.
Howard Lovy: Okay. Thank you, Julie. Bye.
Julie Day: Bye.
