Julie Modra grew up in the town of Taree and the idyllic NSW seaside community of Forster-Tuncurry. Her great-grandmother was a well-respected Indigenous woman from the Worimi nation in the coastal region. In her early teens, Julie shut herself in her bedroom away from the domestic violence that raged on the other side of the door and wrote poetry, as well as screenplays for puppet shows and a larger play which were all performed in churches she attended. In her late teens, Julie lived with an elderly couple on their farm, adding together all the components to her becoming her own version of Anne of Green Gables, complete with the wild red hair and freckles.
Eventually, Julie moved with her husband and children to the bayside area of Redland City, Brisbane, where she raised her three beautiful daughters and refocused on her love of words, becoming a secondary English and History teacher (BA of Arts/BA of Education). She also taught as a sessional lecturer on Western Literary Tradition and Australian Literature, immersing herself in her love of English literature and poetry.
Julie now writes full time and has recently finished a large novel work titled Her Father’s Daughter, a literary fiction, inspirational, historical fiction romance which is the first book in a series. Julie has also turned her attention to writing middle grade fiction due to her passion to engage middle grade readers, especially boys, with reading. Her middle grade book The Boy Who Carried the Sun is to be published by Rhiza Edge in 2026, a story about friendship and adventure which explores the themes of bullying, loss, and kindness.
Julie has experienced difficult seasons in her life that have informed her writing. Her middle daughter battled cancer as a baby and lost her hearing due to treatment, and later Julie suffered the loss of her first husband to cancer. Julie often imbues her writing with layered meaning that points to the beauty that comes from overcoming pain.
Julie is a graduate of the Australian Writers’ Centre and has facilitated and been involved in numerous writers’ workshopping groups. She has a keen interest in the areas of writing craft, developmental editing, and copyediting, completing a subject on editing and proofreading at Curtin University. She supports other writers whenever possible in their creative pursuits and has enrolled to study a Masters of Creative Writing in 2026 to further her skills and knowledge.
When Julie is not writing, she procrastinates by sewing garments to wear; camping off-grid in nature with her wonderful husband, Brian, and their very big maremma sheepdog, Shiloh; watching her backyard chickens whilst sipping tea; or babysitting her precious grandson.
Julie's books with Wombat | Rhiza include:
The Boy Who Carried the Sun (Coming 2026)