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=Juliet Blackwell=  Juliet Blackwell (b. 1962) is a contemporary, New York Times and Nationally bestselling American writer. She is best known for her Witchcraft Mysteries and Haunted Home Renovation Mystery series. Her work is characterized by drawing on her own life experiences to create main characters who are strong, independent women struggling with their supernatural gifts as well as everyday life. She is currently also writing Women’s Fiction, short fiction, and, occasionally, romance fiction.

Childhood
Juliet was born and raised in the California Bay Area and attended the University of California at Santa Cruz, where she majored in Latin American Studies. She went to graduate school at the University at Albany (SUNY) and received a Masters in Anthropology and also a Masters in Social Work. She pursued a PhD in Anthropology, carrying out research with Vietnamese refugees and Mexican immigrants in the U.S. She found out writing fiction was a lot more fun than dry academic tomes, so she never completed her final book about the subject and remains A.B.D. (all but dissertation.)

Life prior to becoming a writer
Juliet has worked as a waitress, a school social worker, in refugee resettlement, and as a teacher of English as a foreign language. She taught classes in Anthropology at SUNY-Albany, where she specialized in Medical Anthropology and the Anthropology of Health and Health care; she published several scholarly articles and one full-length translation of Miguel Leon-Portilla’s seminal work concerning the indigenous peoples of Mexico, Endangered Cultures. She was a producer on a BBC production called The Search (1991) (directed by Michael Grigsby) about Amerasian children left behind in Vietnam after the war, their journey through a refugee camp and settling in the U.S. After leaving academia Juliet became a faux finisher/muralist/portrait painter and established a studio in California’s Bay Area. She painted and managed historic renovation projects for more than a decade. A lover of travel and different cultures, she has worked and lived in Italy, France, Spain, England, The Philippines, Cuba, Mexico, and Central America.

Life after becoming a writer
Juliet served two terms as President of the Northern California chapter of Sisters in Crime, and also served on the board of the Northern California Mystery Writers of America. She enjoys teaching writing workshops, meeting with students, and is part of a vibrant writer’s group. Juliet has judged her contemporary writers for the Edgars and several other national and local honors. She is an active adult literacy tutor.

Personal life
Juliet has one son, a big brown dog, a part-time black cat, and a host of friends who people the historic, ramshackle, haunted house that she is (very) slowly renovating.

Writings
Like most writers, Juliet was an avid reader at a very young age, and once set out to read the entire library over summer vacation (in alphabetical order). Unfortunately she had to go back to school before she made it past “D”, and has been working on it ever since. As a child she devoured Trixie Belden, and the Three Investigators mysteries, before moving on to Elizabeth Peters/Barbara Michaels, who is still one of her favorite authors.

Published works
Witchcraft Mystery Series

The Witchcraft Mystery Series features Lily Ivory, a witch with a vintage clothing store in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood.


 * 1) 	Secondhand Spirits (2009)
 * 2) 	A Cast-off Coven (2010)
 * 3) 	Hexes and Hemlines (2011)
 * 4) 	In a Witch’s Wardrobe (2012)
 * 5) 	Tarnished and Torn (2013)
 * 6) 	A Vision in Velvet (2014)
 * 7) 	Spellcasting in Silk (coming July, 2015)

Haunted Home Renovation Series

The Haunted Home Renovation Series features Mel Turner, a failed anthropologist who took over her father’s high-end construction company, specializing in historic homes in San Francisco. As Mel works on the homes, she finds ghosts behind the walls…


 * 1) 	If Walls Could Talk (2010)
 * 2) 	Dead Bolt (2011)
 * 3) 	Murder on the House (2012)
 * 4) 	Home for the Haunting (2013)
 * 5) 	Keeper of the Castle (coming Dec 2, 2014)

The Art Lover’s Mystery Series (aka, the Annie Kinkaid Mysteries, written as Hailey Lind)

The Art Lover's Mystery Series features Annie Kinkaid, a former art forger trying to go straight by working as a faux finisher in San Francisco. But Annie has an eye for fakes, and gets drawn back into the shadowy world of felons, fakes, and forgers.


 * 1) 	Feint of Art (2006)
 * 2) 	Shooting Gallery (2006)
 * 3) 	Brush with Death (2007)
 * 4) 	Arsenic and Old Paint (2010)

Short stories


 * "A Haunting is Brewing" – an intermix e-novella in which her two popular main characters, Mel Turner and Lily Ivory, meet to solve the murder of a student at a Halloween Haunted House. (coming October 2014)
 * "Fool’s Gold" - a free short story available on the website featuring Oscar and Lily from the Witchcraft mystery series
 * "Belly of the Beast" – a noir short story in the “Nate Hollis, PI” Anthology edited by Gary Phillips (2011)
 * "Queen of Hearts" – a romance e-novella in the holiday anthology “Love on Main Street: A Snow Creek Christmas.” (2014)

Critical Reception
Suspense magazine named If Walls Could Talk one of their top picks in 2010 when it was released, Feint of Art (as Hailey Lind) was nominated for an Agatha Award, and Oscar of the Witchcraft Mysteries was nominated for a Watson Award in 2013.

=Interests and Influences=

Juliet’s writings are influenced by and based upon on her international travels, anthropological research, background in art, experience in architecture, and diverse friends and family members.

She has been a painter (on canvas) all her life. In an effort to pay her graduate school bills she apprenticed with a faux finisher/historic renovation specialist in New York, and began painting on walls. While working on a vacant Pacific Heights mansion at 3 in the morning she thought she heard steps overhead; this overactive imagination inspired her first mystery novel, featuring an art forger-turned-faux finisher. Her painting and historic renovation management studio in Berkeley blossomed in response to the dot-com boom in the Bay Area. She is also a skilled portrait painter.

Juliet’s interest in the paranormal was established as a young child, when her favorite aunt visited and read her cards and tea leaves – with astonishing results. As an anthropologist, Juliet studied numerous traditional healing and belief systems that are sometimes referred to as “witchcraft”. Family members in Mexico helped teach Juliet about legends, customs, and modes of healing in that country and among Mexican immigrant communities in the U.S. She has visited covens, witnessed traditional healers, spoken with believers in Wicca, and interviewed contemporary practicing witches in an effort to ensure her writings are respectful and based in the diverse realities of contemporary believers. Juliet speaks several languages and believes in the importance of travel, reading, and cross-cultural friendships in the development of human understanding and interpersonal relationships. She believes in the magic of fiction.

=External Links=
 * Juliet Blackwell Website http://www.julietblackwell.net/


 * Facebook Fan Page https://www.facebook.com/JulietBlackwellAuthor


 * Examples of artwork http://www.truefauxdesigns.com