About My Writing:

Barbed is my first book-length publication. As a manuscript it won runner-up in Nonfiction from the 2018 San Francisco Writer’s Conference, and in 2019 it was shortlisted for a Journey award from Chanticleer.

Having made me an author from the Southwest, I also thank Barbed for my recent invitations (January and August of 2023) to write reviews for the LA Review of Books.

Two of my short stories, “Dying for Love” and “Iris,” were selected for the Desert Sleuth’s biannual mystery story anthology in 2019 and 2021 respectively. (See my Writing page.)

Other manuscripts have won prizes but are still finding their way to publication. The Portals of Peril, a sci-fi novel for middle grade readers, won the grand prize in Chanticleer’s 2018 Gertrude Warner Awards for middle grade fiction. A Fairy’s Tails, a middle grade fantasy novel, was awarded First Place in that same category in 2020. Also in 2020, my short story “Convenient Fictions” was among Writer’s Digest’s top ten for literary fiction.

Sometimes words find me that require not only a different genre but a different form of writing altogether. For these, I am exploring poetry. My poem “Getting Somewhere” was selected for the 2023 San Diego Poetry Annual, and in 2020, my poem “Western Girl” earned Honorable Mention in the Arizona Authors Awards.

Find and follow me for an occasional poem and lots of pictures of my creative journey on Facebook and Instagram:

https://www.facebook.com/JulieMorrisonWriter

https://www.instagram.com/juliemorrisonwriter/

Photo credit: Lisa Schnebly Heidinger

About Me:

I am at least but not exclusively an Arizonan, horsewoman, dog person, swimmer, dancer, hiker, coffee drinker, planner, fountain splasher, flower smeller, walk elongator, and singer-in-the-car.

I am very honored to have earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Seattle Pacific University (2023), and I am still an enthusiastic-if-not-fluent Spanish language student. If there were hats for these, I would buy them ALL—I am a fool for a great hat. I fear I will never be much of a chef or gardener, though I do love to pull weeds, especially right after a rain when the ground is soft and the air still smells like the lazy remnants of the storm. I do not love to do dishes, stormy weather or not.

About My Riding:

I am privileged to have horses among my friends and educators. I grew up showing registered Quarter Horses in what are termed “performance” events (mostly recognizable for having no objects to chase, jump, or race around.) In my late teens and college years I switched to riding and showing Hunters, horses that navigate a pattern of jumps at a leisurely approach pace, doing all they can to manage up, so to speak, to keep their rider in the saddle. In my late 20s and early 30s I showed Reiners, horses that slide and spin in an arena the way they might if working a cow.

I discovered dressage on a trip to Spain in 2016, and have been doing my best ever since to keep the charms of both art and country close.

Recent injuries have me re-evaluating what kind of riding I can now do best and most comfortably. It’s an opportunity to re-discover horsemanship, and I’m excited to have it.

The photos here are representative of some of the most memorable of my recent rides.