"On the eve of my thirtieth birthday, stuck in a dead-end secretarial job, living in a hideous apartment in Long Island City, Queens, and dreading what seemed like a life of terminal mediocrity, I came up with a panicked notion—to cook through all 524 recipes of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, in a year, and blog about it. Julie and Julia describes my efforts to hold on to my job, marriage, and sanity while blazing a nonsensical trail toward fulfillment, with Julia leading the way."

--Julie Powell

Armed with what she describes as “an incredibly useful double major in theater and fiction writing,” Julie Powell moved with husband-to-be Eric to New York City. She was there to pursue the dream of so many young liberal arts idealists—the proverbial career in acting—but her reality proved less exciting: seven years spent in the service of dead-end temp jobs and soul-crushing monotony.  Wanting to escape, Powell embarked upon The Julie/Julia Project, a year-long journey to find herself by cooking every recipe from Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking and chronicle it in a blog.

The blog became an online sensation and developed a devoted following, resulting in an article in The New York Times and eventually her first book, Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously, which was a national bestseller. 

In Julie and Julia, Powell recounts her efforts—both successful and unsuccessful, frustrating and amusing—to master Julia Child’s lessons in gastronomy as well as to find inspiration in her idol’s persistence and philosophical outlook on life.  Adapted into a feature film directed by Nora Ephron and starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams, Powell’s story is delighting moviegoers and is once again on the bestseller list.

"You don’t have to like cooking or French food to enjoy the zippiness of Ms. Powell’s prose or to admire the purpose of her project.  If our own grueling endeavors rarely bring the insight we imagined, or the transformation for which we hoped, Julie and Julia at least affords us the pleasure of cheering for Ms. Powell as she attempts her own.  And she really did change her life.  Now she’s a writer.  A good one."

—The Wall Street Journal

Praised for her piquant writing style, Powell entertains readers with humor and gusto—and sometimes a highly colorful vocabulary—as she weaves life lessons into her musings on food, cooking, career, and life. 

 
Julie Powell continues her culinary adventures and struggles to find contentment in her second memoir, Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession.

 
In Cleaving, Powell details how her storybook marriage to her high school sweetheart, Eric, began to unravel.  Trying to make sense of things, she escapes into the world of butchery.  At Fleisher’s, a butcher shop tucked away in the Catskills, she finds sanctuary and a dynamic group of nouvelle “meat hippies” who teach her how to French a rack of ribs, break down entire sides of beef, and make the most of liver.  Butchery mastered, Powell takes off on a worldwide tour—the beef capital of Buenos Aires, post-revolution Ukraine, the Maasai villages of Tanzania—discovering an international brotherhood of butchers and learning, finally, how to stand on her own two feet. 

 
In addition to her books and blog, Julie Powell’s writing has appeared in many periodicals, including The New York Times, House Beautiful, Food & Wine and Bon Appétit. In her lectures she speaks with wit, candor, and insight about food, personal fulfillment, and marriage and relationships, as well as a variety of life’s other “minor” obsessions. 

 
A native of Austin, TX, Julie and her husband Eric (yes, still happily married!) live in a “loft” in Long Island City, Queens, with their two cats, one snake, and a 110-pound dog named Robert. 

 
When asked how her life has been changed by Julie and Julia, she says, “I now write in my pajamas for a living—long may this career path continue.” With her next book coming out this winter and her current work on a new novel, it appears that cubicle life is quite firmly behind her.

Books

• Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession (Little Brown, 2009)
• Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously (Little Brown, 2005)
  

Awards

• 2006 Quills Award, Debut Author
• 2006 First Annual “Blooker” Award
• 2005 James Beard Award, Magazine Feature Writing With Recipes
• 2004 James Beard Award, Magazine Feature Writing Without Recipes 
  

Media

To view Julie Powell on Good Morning America talking about her latest book, Cleaving, click here.

To view Julie Powell interviewed on KQED's Writer's Block, click here.

To view Julie Powell, Channeling Julia Child, on Nightline, click here.

To read a Q & A with Julie Powell on Oprah.com, click here.
To read The New York Times, Times Topics, about Julie Powell, click here.

For more information on Julie Powell and her writing visit her blog http://www.juliepowell.blogspot.com/, or her website, juliepowellbooks.com.