NAME: Julie Lew
CREATIVE FIELD: Author
WEBSITE: julielew.com
AUTHOR BIO:
Julie Lew (she/they) loves all things fantasy and horror, the darker and queerer the better. Their adult gothic horror novel, THE WIVES OF HERRICK HALL, is forthcoming from Quill & Crow on May 5, 2026, while their YA fantasy mystery, DEATH IN VERSE, will be published by Union Square Kids/Hachette later this year.
She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her partner, and when she’s not writing books about the magical and the monstrous, she’s likely playing endless games of fetch with her chihuahua-terrier mix pup Kody.
INTERVIEW
What got you into horror to begin with – what’s your core Horror memory?
I’ve always been into dark things ever since I was a kid. When I was around nine or ten, I asked my parents for a book on poisons so I could find new and inventive ways to knock off the characters in my stories (and these characters rarely got a happily ever after).
Back then, I was fascinated by the dark sides of humanity, especially what motivates us to take a life or haunt this existence after death. And even now, murder and the supernatural are still what my books explore today.
A core horror memory for me was watching the original 1956 movie “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” It terrified me SO MUCH, and I still remember my visceral reaction to one of its scenes – I NEEDED it to stop, but at the same time I couldn’t look away until the very end. Until I knew what happened.
I think horror is such a fascinating genre because it seeks to induce such a physical reaction from its audience, while also exploring on a more intellectual level what scares us – individually or as a society – and why.
Do you have a favourite horror subgenre (or more than one) and if so, what is it? What/Who are your favourite books/films/podcasts/artists/creatives working in that subgenre?
My favorite subgenre is definitely gothic horror (the gothic seems to influence everything I work on).
Some of my favorites include classics like “The Haunting of Hill House” and “Mexican Gothic,” as well as gothic novels that lean into the unsettling atmosphere of the genre without being strictly horror books, like “Rebecca” and “Jane Eyre.”
What is the horror project of your heart – perhaps something you’ve already got out there, something you’re working on now, or something you’d like to do?
My debut novel, “The Wives of Herrick Hall,” comes out this May from the indie press Quill & Crow.
It’s a sapphic gothic horror about a lady’s companion who is forced to work for a mysterious mistress with a mercurial temper and who sees visions of her own death every night.
A sentient house and several vengeful ghosts also make appearances, which was so incredibly fun to write.
I’m also currently working on another gothic horror that is in the very early stages of a rough draft. I can’t say much yet, but it’s very personal to my lived experience as a biracial person navigating feeling comfortable in their own skin. And of course, there will be murder and ghosts because it’s more fun that way!
Which 5 horror books can you not stop thinking about, or have influenced you most in some way? (If not books, you can pick 5 films, 5 pieces of art, 5 songs… or mix & match!)
One of the reasons I wrote “The Wives of Herrick Hall” was because I could not get enough of historical sapphic stories. I think there should be so much more!
I come from a film and TV background, so early influences for me were the movies “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” by Celine Sciamma and “The Favourite” from Yorgos Lanthimos.
Sarah Waters’ book and TV adaptation of “Tipping the Velvet” were also pivotal for me as a queer teen.
And on the horror front, I’ll read anything from Laura Purcell, Isabel Cañas, Skyla Arndt, and CG Drews.
If you had to describe the tones and themes of your own work in terms of movies, books, songs, or art, what would you choose and why?
Oooh, I like to pitch Herrick Hall as a book for people who love Jane Eyre and Jane Austen but want more women kissing in their books.
Jane Austen was of course not a horror author, but I’ve read her work so much in hopes that her sharp prose and the depth of her characters will sink into my own writing.
Aesthetic-wise, I was also deeply influenced by the richness of Guillermo del Toro’s movies and the claustrophobic foreboding of Mike Flanagan‘s “The Haunting of Hill House” and “The Haunting of Bly Manor.”
Introduce us to something you’ve created, and pitch it to the audience!
I hope I’ve tempted a few gothic horror lovers to check out my debut novel, “The Wives of Herrick Hall,” when it comes out on May 5th.
But if your cup of tea is more mystery-focused or young adult leaning, I also have my YA debut coming out this fall. Set in an alternate 1920s America with a poetry-based magic system, “Death in Verse” is a locked-island mystery about a group of poets trapped in an abandoned school, who must race against the clock to finish a poem as their anonymous host begins killing them one by one.