I’ll be sharing stories about The Reluctant Pioneer, Washington Territory’s Grand Lady, Matilda Koontz Jackson. I hope to see you there.      

You just never know who you’ll meet on the airport shuttle. After returning from Boston, Edna and I boarded the shuttle to the long-term parking lot, and we struck up a conversation with a couple across from us. Wayne Potter operates a podcast in the Portland area called Keeping Kurrent, so he interviewed me about […]

  “Julie is amazing. She is a tornado with a smile on her face. There is no doubt that she loves what she does and has the expertise to do it well. Juie is a writer’s best friend and will have your back, start to finish. “We have enjoyed every bit of our time working […]

What a treat I enjoyed this summer when my daughter and I coauthored a book called Chapters of Life in Centralia in honor of the 150th anniversary of the creation of Centerville, which became Centralia, Washington, in 1889. I scrambled to scan 150 years’ worth of photos at the Lewis County Historical Museum and wondered […]

I enjoyed working with Helena Wagner to edit and design her memoir, Shadows of a Mother’s Dream: A Story of Hope, Resilience, and Love, a wonderful story of her life in Korea, her marriage to a U.S. serviceman, embracing the Christian faith, and her life growing in confidence as a wife, mother, and entrepreneur. Pick […]

A forgotten diary. A century-old secret. A town still haunted by its past. When former Navy Seabee Colleen Holmes inherits an old house in Centralia, Washington, she sees it as a chance to escape her own ghosts and start anew. But as she peels back layers of history within the home’s walls, she unearths long-buried […]

Matilda Koontz cherishes her life as a wife and mother on a Missouri farm, but her hardworking husband wants to claim free farmland in the Pacific Northwest. When he suggests selling the farm to trek two thousand miles across the Oregon Trail, she balks. But in the spring of 1847, Matilda and Nicholas Koontz and […]

  “I was nervous to tell my tale. Julie was so easy to talk to, and I really enjoyed our sessions together. She was very non-judgmental, even when I told her my secrets. And when I couldn’t remember basic info about my family history, she was a geneology gem! But best of all, she shaped […]

I loved working with Marion Davenport to capture her life story in a beautiful book. What a delight! I also enjoyed working with her adult children, Bill Davenport and Amy Hamdan, as we added photos and designed the book. From Marion Davenport: “I was nervous to tell my tale. Julie was so easy to talk […]

A Decade of Knitting Together Family and Friends By Henry Port Kirk III “Hank and I were so glad to see you today and to share our excitement about volume 2 of HPK’s memoirs. We both were enriched by our relationship with you as we went through the process from early notes to publication. Without […]