Julie McArthur was born and raised in Kanata, then a small suburb of Ottawa, Ontario. On a grade two report card her teacher Mrs. Hobbs wrote, “In her stories Julie writes good sentences and expresses interesting ideas.” Although she was always an avid reader growing up and kept a journal from a young age, it was a long and winding road to writing and editing fiction.

Moving back and forth between Toronto and Ottawa, she studied ceramics, early childhood education, counselling and advocacy for assaulted women and children, grammar and editing.

While working as a preschool teacher and cook, she enrolled in creative writing classes and later founded F&G Writers, a bi-monthly workshop she facilitated for eight years from her living room.

McArthur now has over twenty short stories published in literary journals across North America and the UK including The Antigonish Review, The Fiddlehead, Joyland, Necessary Fiction, PANK, and Prairie Fire. Her first collection Men and the Drink (unpublished) received three Ontario Arts Council grants.

She works as a freelance editor and has been copy editor for the literary journal Agnes and True for ten years. She is also a passionate advocate for older adults and works as a respite caregiver.