Julia Willis (born August 21, 1949)

[reviews_and_ramblings]

Julia Willis was born August 21, 1949, in Charlotte, North Carolina, daughter of William Clem and Carolyn Willis. She earned her bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, in 1973. She began her career as an associate editor for Red Clay Books in 1974.

She has written four books including, Reel Time, a comic novel; We Oughta Be in Pictures, for which she was a Lambda Award drama finalist; Who Wears the Tux?, a lesbian quiz book; and Meow-Mories. Her work has also appeared in numerous women’s anthologies.

Julia was a founding member of the women’s comedy troupe, the Ends and Means Committee. She wrote for the lesbian soap opera, Two in Twenty, and her award-winning one-act comedies have been produced by off-off-Broadway and by gay and lesbian theatres around the country. In addition to reviewing for Lambda Book Report and The Lesbian Review of Books, she has written comedy material for the Boston Baked Theater, Terra Infirma on NPR and for Joan Rivers. She has received fellowships and grants from the Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation, Massachusetts Artists Foundation, Edward Albee Foundation and MacDowell Colony.

She worked as a freelance writer, poet, producer, comedy writer/performer and a playwright through the 1990s. She has been married since 2006.

Her papers are held at ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives. This collection documents Julia Willis’ career as a writer of books, plays, poetry, comedic writings, short stories, and newspaper columns. The bulk of the material dates from the 1990s and includes manuscripts, drafts, correspondence, scripts, notes, press material, photocopies of awards and recognitions, reviews, clippings, program and other papers.

Source: http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt3r29r8zk/

Further Readings:

Reel Time: A Novel by Julia Willis
Paperback: 345 pages
Publisher: Alyson Books; 1st edition (September 1998)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1555834515
ISBN-13: 978-1555834517
Amazon: Reel Time: A Novel

Laney Turner can't say no to women. When her therapist, Roxanne, asks her out, she reluctantly agrees, and when Roxanne deserts her for another woman, Laney lets her strange new housemates send her on a series of disastrous blind dates--one of which ends abruptly when her date is led away in handcuffs by the police. But no one will introduce her to the woman she really wants to meet: the redheaded, dangerous-looking femme fatale who sings for the band Girl Group. Everyone, it seems, has a hidden past with lovely Ena. Will Laney get her girl? And if she does, will the mystery woman prove to be another disappointment? Julia Willis's comedy gets off to a slow start but picks up speed midway, when Laney and her flame-haired paramour begin to strike sparks off each other. Reel Time is a well-written first novel, with an unusually rich background of friends and events. --Regina Marler