Jacqueline Bublitz

It’s me. Hi! I wrote Before You Knew My Name (2021) and Leave the Girls Behind (2024). My official bio says that I am a writer, feminist, and arachnophobe. These are three things I know to be true. But as my favourite quote is that one about multitudes*, here are some other things about me (that often find their way into my books) … I grew up in a small town in New Zealand. We had two book stores on the main street, and a terrific local library. As the youngest of five kids, I was always reading my big sisters’ books. Which means I’m that writer who loves a lot of words she still doesn’t really know the meaning of. Melbourne is the city of my heart. I adore musical theatre. The true dream of my life was to be Annie. My most beloved scores are from Chess, Aspects of Love, and Cabaret, and my favourite moment of live theatre EVER was seeing the closing performance of the Merrily We Roll Along revival on Broadway.

Also, I once cuddled Michael Ball. I’ve been obsessed with New York City since I was five years old. I didn’t get there until I was 24, and she was everything I’d ever imagined. I’ve visited NYC at least eight times since then, and in my late thirties I got to live in a studio apartment on the Upper West Side for six months, while I researched the book that became my debut, Before You Knew My Name. I am a dog person. My favourite social media account is WeRateDogs. Tell your dog I sad hi! I do a really mean Butterfly swim stroke. That has nothing obvious to do with my writing. But I suppose it shows I have stamina. I cry the most easily and frequently of anyone you’ve ever met.

And I’m not sorry if I make you cry, too. But only in the cathartic way. The second true dream of my life was to be Laura Holt. I did my final year of high school in Flushing, Michigan, with the exchange program AFS. There is an exchange student in my latest novel. But she is very much not based on me (even if I, too, was in the spring musical). I am also a horse person. And a turtle, fox, giraffe and tiny bat person. And I’m a childless cat-lady original. My characters will generally like their pets more than their people (and their politicians). I was always the third speaker in a debate. I am one of those people who visits a new place and immediately imagines herself living there. I’m pretty sure that blackbird always pecking about is my Dad. I don’t have firm views on the so-called after life, but I do believe (per Fox Mulder) that the dead are never truly lost to us. I never got to be Annie, or Laura Holt. But I did grow up to be a real-life author – and it’s the privilege of my life.