Bios

Short Generic Bio:

pro8tJulie Sondra Decker is an author from Tampa, Florida. She writes fantasy and science fiction for adults and children, and is known as a prominent voice for the asexual community. Her nonfiction title The Invisible Orientation (Skyhorse/Carrel) was published in September 2014.

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Longer Generic/Comprehensive Bio with Links:

Julie Sondra Decker is an author from Tampa, Florida. She writes science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories for adults and children, and is known as a prominent voice for the asexual community. Her nonfiction title The Invisible Orientation (Skyhorse/Carrel), a Lambda Award finalist, was published in September 2014. In the past she contributed blogs for Psychology Today and Good Vibrations, has published multiple articles on the topic, and has been interviewed in the mainstream media as an asexuality spokesperson on multiple occasions. Julie’s non-writing interests include baking, drawing, singing, cartoon fandom, drinking coffee, and engaging through social media. She has run a weekly fantasy webcomic, Negative One, since 2005, and a monthly joke comic for writers, So You Write, since 2012. Her work can be found online at her author site, personal blog, or complete list of published works.

Asexuality-Education-Focused Bio:

Julie Sondra Decker has been a prominent voice for the asexual community since 1998. She is the author of the book The Invisible Orientation, which is the first mainstream-published asexuality book for the layperson, and she also spreads asexuality awareness through her popular YouTube videos, blog essays, and articles. Her interviews and reviews have appeared in print and digital media (New York Times, Salon, The Daily Beast, TIME, Marie Claire, The Huffington Post), on television, on the radio/podcasts, and in 2011’s documentary film (A)sexual. She has published several asexuality articles with Good Vibrations, Everyday Feminism, and The Toast, and has given educational talks about asexuality at the University of Virginia, Creating Change in Atlanta, Ryerson University, Wellesley College, and Princeton University. Julie is also a novelist, and she lives and works in Tampa, Florida.

Longer General Bio:

Julie Sondra Decker is a versatile author from Tampa, Florida. Her fiction is primarily focused on speculative subjects—science fiction, fantasy, magical realism—and she writes for young people as well as for adults. Her nonfiction addresses awareness efforts for underrepresented subjects, most notably asexuality. Julie has been a prominent voice for the asexual community since 1998, spreading asexuality awareness through her popular videos and writings. She is the author of the first asexuality book for the mainstream audience, The Invisible Orientation (Skyhorse/Carrel), published in September 2014. She has been interviewed in many mainstream publications, and she was a prominent interviewee in the documentary (A)sexual by Arts Engine. Julie is also a webcomic artist, a singer, and an avid reader. As an aromantic asexual woman, Julie is happily single. In her spare time (on the rare occasion that she has any), she enjoys baking, playing tennis, blogging, and posting wordy rambles on the Internet.

Sillier First-Person Bio:

I’m a writer.  Surprise!

I mostly write novels.  So far I’ve completed nine novels, finishing my first at age fourteen and my most recent in July 2015.  I also write short stories, poetry, rants, nonfiction, essays, webcomics, articles, and silliness.  I have over half a dozen published articles and a couple short story sales, and my nonfiction book on asexuality sold to Skyhorse Publishing/Carrel Books in November 2013.  I’m pursuing publication for my other works, and I’m always doing something new.

I’m forty-six years old, not interested in dating or marriage, and not planning to have children.  I’m an aromantic asexual woman, a vegetarian, a natural blonde, an eldest daughter, a soprano, a good speller, an editor, and a creativity junkie.  I’m 4’11” tall; I type well over 100 words per minute; I live in Florida, USA; half of my family is from Jewish roots and the other half is from Catholic roots; I live alone in a two-bedroom apartment; and I graduated from the University of Florida in 2000 with a Bachelor’s in elementary education and a psychology minor.

My non-writing-related interests include drawing, singing, playing Dance Dance Revolution, gardening, reading, writing book reviews, playing with websites, literary criticism, asexuality awareness activism, tennis, making YouTube videos, baking, riding my bicycle, talking to friends, arts and crafts, science fiction and fantasy, manga and anime, playing with babies, fairy tales and mythology, unusual music, animal rights, musicals and stage shows, ping-pong, outer space, karaoke, journaling, feminism, dreams, candles, cartoons, fat activism, solitude, webcomics, personality analysis, imagination, queer rights, environmentalism, Halloween, humor, inspiration, long hair, Copic markers, nature, nostalgia and documentation, and discussion of Paganism and atheism.

I love being warm and hate being cold.  I love children, especially babies.  I love learning very fast songs with lots of lyrics.  And I love how it smells outside after the rain.

I’ve wanted to be an author since I was about six years old.

 

I prepared for this life by learning to read early and cultivating a love of books that only increased over the years.

8 thoughts on “Bios

  1. I’ve watched a few of your blogs & I “write on eggshells”, hoping not to sound ignorant.
    Short & brief; I thought I was a lesbian, then transgender, then a lesbian again, I think I’m bisexual now, I kind of gave up with even giving myself a name for my sexuality. But I am most definitely not asexual. Now, I have this really nice friend I met at my local library and she tells me she’s asexual. All I could think of at that point was my 8th grade bio teacher telling me asexual was when an organism splits themself apart to double themselves or something. So I asked her how that was physically possible. Then she explained, it’s just that she isn’t interested in a sex life and most probably never will be, a relationship would be based on love, no sexual attraction at all. I have to say, it confuses me. I don’t understand asexuality. But I’ve been such an activist for gay rights, transgender rights, bisexual rights, even though I’ve been in a straight relationship for 3 and a half years and people laugh at me when I explain I’m an ally. The point: I want to know more about asexuality, because how can I include it in my activism spectrum when I have no idea what it is? I hope to understand everyone in the world a little better, all the religions, all the ethnicities, all the sexual orientations, and all the social cultures. So maybe you could help me understand?
    -Jenni

    • Hello! Glad to hear you want to be an ally. It’s great to know you don’t have to understand something to know it needs your support. (And it’s a shame that bisexual erasure makes so many people assume that once you pick a long-term partner as a bisexual person, it means you’re “really” either straight or gay depending on the sex of your partner. That’s like saying you stop having the ability to be attracted to anyone but your spouse if you get married, though of course most monogamous people don’t act on those attractions.)

      If you’re interested in more about asexuality, I hope my book will be published and be available for you soon, but there are resources now. If you would like a quick overview, I created this video to outline the basics, and it has some ally ideas:

      Asexuality: An Overview

      And here is my mini-blog on the subject. The sidebar has links to asexual blogs, flyers, information, discussion groups, academic research, and video media.

      Hope this helps!

  2. Julie, you are a great example of how much more can be done when people don’t bother with silly relationships. You are an inspiration to people like me who wish to live alone and achieve my goals. I hope by the time I am 35 I will be living my life finally.

    • For the record I do not think of pursuing relationships as “silly” any more than writing stories is silly. We all chase our passions and I respect everyone’s perspective on what’s important to pursue. I do agree, though, of course, that relationships aren’t the only way to find meaning and satisfaction! And yeah I definitely love living alone. I wish you the best.

      • I guess the relationships of other people seem silly to me because as far as I can tell, most of what people call relationships are about sex only.

        Now I see that I have a relationship with everyone that I communicate with. The fact that nothing in my life is sexual does not discount it. As I learn more about people and their relationships, I see that not all of them are silly.

        And silliness can be good sometimes. Just because something is silly, foolish, or stupid does not mean that there is nothing to learn from in it.

  3. hi Julie –

    I found you after searching about corrective rape for asexuals, landing on a HuffPo article, and then clicking through because I wanted to find out more about your book about asexuality (which sounds super exciting and I can’t wait to read it!) — I just had my first encounter with telling someone outside my usual bubble of very open, generally feminist, intellectual-ish young adults about asexuality – it was really unpleasant and I felt threatened during the experience (hence the research on corrective rape) – and I’m glad that people like you are working to bring aces into mainstream discourse.

    Also, your list of interests sounds awesome and riding bikes is the best.

    – all the best from a sophomore in connecticut originally from asia

    • Wonderful, so happy to hear from you! Sorry to hear you’ve had similar experiences though. I’m glad you’re in support of my book–everything’s moving and looking great for a fall 2014 release! Feel free to get in touch if you want to be pals since we have stuff in common. 🙂

  4. Dear Julie,

    Thank you so very much for everything. I am an aromantic asexual as well, and I just want to say how inspired I am by your writings about asexuality. It has been hard for me to believe that even as a 21-year old African-American college student that I could be aromantic and asexual, but I’m glad I’ve found that there are other asexual and aromantic people out there and that I’m not alone. Thank you and best wishes in your endeavors.

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