Cirrus@Austlit

Julie Lewis (née Heath) was educated at Perth Modern School and qualified as a teacher in 1944. She taught in various schools in Western Australia and London, where she married fellow West Australian, John Lewis. In 1954 they moved back to Perth, Julie resigned from teaching and became a mother of three children. In 1964 she began to write radio scripts for the ABC, including women's programmes and school broadcasts. Other writings included short fiction, articles and book reviews. In 1967 Lewis completed a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Western Australia and in 1970 she returned to teaching English and literature at various high schools.

In 1976 she resigned from teaching to become a full-time writer. In the same year she started research on her first biography, On Air: The Story of Catherine King and the ABC Women's Session. Other biographies were to follow as well as her own collections of short fiction. Her fiction has been published widely in literary journals and her work has been extensively anthologised. Throughout her literary career Lewis conducted many creative writing and literature workshops for secondary and tertiary students, as well as biography and family history workshops for arts centres and literary organisations. Lewis served on a number of panels and boards including the Western Australian Arts Council (1980-82), the Bicentennial Publications Committee, the Western Australia Department for the Arts Advisory Panel for Literature and the Literature Board of the Australia Council (1990-93).