Julie Gobby

Hello, my name is Julie Gobby, was born in the UK and emigrated to Australia in my mid-twenties.

I have dreamt of writing from a very early age. At the beginning I tried to write a science fiction novel. I also wrote children's stories. I could not decide and thought that they were not good enough to publish. I dedicated a small part of my life to my dream, but as always life got in the way.

Many years later after many changes in my life, I had the opportunity to fully concentrate on fulfilling my dream and concentrated on the children's stories.

This became my total focus, and I found the stories came naturally.

The first three concentrated on Australian animals in many different environments.

I collaborated with my aunt, Christine Starmer, who is a talented artist, and brought the characters alive, with her colourful unique art works.

The first book, Puggle the Echidna is a story about the relationship between a mother and her child and the bond that exists. I thought this story could transcend all cultural boundaries while showing a child that the love of a mother is universal with no comparison. I introduced Australian animals with the rainforest as the setting. I wanted to educate the child in the ways of the Australian rainforest animals and the environment.

The first book was too long, but you learn with every book you write.

I included a wordfinder in each book as I also wanted to help the child learn about the words and the meaning, hoping that the adult reading with the child would be interactive.

The second book, The Lazy Legless Lizard was a great way for kids to learn about the Australian lizards and the environment they live in. I loved learning about the lizards and the characters came easy. The desert is a strange but wonderful landscape.

I wanted to introduce humour with the characters and how they interact. All my stories have morals, and I hope this comes through in the writing.

The third book is the coral reef, which I have visited a few times, nearly sitting on a green turtle in one of my ocean adventures.

I loved learning about Octopus and find them fascinating. No More Calamari for me!!

I ended up having to do some of the artwork in this book and it made me realise that my talents could stretch to illustrations.

The Australian themed books will continue, I have already started on the next Puggle books, and the others are written but not completed.

That leads me onto my next book The Nosey Cow, now that I had discovered I wanted to illustrate my own books and go direct to Kindle, I started experimenting with different forms of illustration and found some great programs and started to develop my own style. I am very happy with the result, but as always, I can do better. This process was much quicker than the first three and my desire is to publish as many stories as I can, so this is my new course of action.

The next book is Billy the Bully Goat I like doing things in threes??? not sure why but the last book is going to be about a Sad Horse.

Then I will go back to the Australian books and complete the series.

I will continue to write and publish my books to educate, entertain and fulfil my destiny.