Bluebeard’s Wife ISBN: 1 900325 42 X Pontefract Press Publication Date:  2005

Bluebeard’s wife is a sequence of eighteen sonnets written when Julie was on a writers’ retreat at Hawthornden Castle.  The original inspiration for this sequence of poems was a performance of Bartok’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle at Symphony Hall, where Julie is Poet in Residence.  Julie invited 21 women writers from the Midlands area to take part in the Behind the Doors project and two years later this resulted in the compilation of a new anthology of the poems of 24 women. This collection, Bluebeard’s Wives (Heaventree Press, 2007) is edited by Julie and  by Zoe Brigley.

Sections of the sequence have been broadcast on Radio.  Julie also discussed this project on Radio 4’s Women’s Hour.