Miss Julia’s School of Beauty:
Author Ann B. Ross Shares the Latest Edition of Her Southern Fiction Series
On UNC-TV's North Carolina Bookwatch, Sunday, July 24, at 5 PM

People from all over the world have fallen in love with Miss Julia Springer—the central character in a series of best-selling fiction by Hendersonville, NC author Ann B. Ross. Miss Julia’s wildly popular escapades in fictional “Abbotsville, North Carolina” have kept readers coming back again and again for years; but who is Miss Julia?

On North Carolina Bookwatch, Sunday, July 24, at 5 PM, Ross sits down with series host DG Martin to share her latest installment of the Miss Julia series, Miss Julia’s School Of Beauty, the ins and outs of her unlikely Southern heroine and the hilarious Miss Julia mishaps that make for so much literary magic.

“[Miss Julia] came to be when I realized I was hearing voices in my head—all of the comments and remarks that I wish I had said or that I wanted to say to people who make those out-of-the-blue remarks that have you speechless and have you thinking of the perfect comeback hours later. I had a lot of those in my head,” says Ross. “At the same time I began to have a mental image of a slender, older woman in a white winter coat, little hat, with a pocketbook dangling from one arm, holding the hand of a little boy. It took me a while to realize that those comments could be coming from this woman and that she had something to say.”

What Miss Julia has had to say has filled six volumes of this wildly popular Southern series. From Miss Julia Speaks her Mind, the book that introduced the sharp-tongued, but soft-hearted, Southern belle, to Ross’s latest Miss Julia’s School Of Beauty, in which Miss Julia is roped into putting on an Abbotsville beauty pageant, the reader sees the evolution of Miss Julia and her kindly view of the world.

“When I started to write the first book, I didn’t know whether I had a story or not. I was simply trying to get all of this stuff out of my head, onto paper, and the story just gradually developed,” admits Ross. “But [the elderly] Miss Julia has just begun to grow up.”

Ann B. Ross has taught literature at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. She lives in Hendersonville, North Carolina.

During this season of North Carolina Bookwatch, guests also include: Shannon Ravenel (New Stories from the South, 2005), Emily Herring Wilson (No One Gardens Alone), Randall Kenan (Walking On Water), Lawrence Earley (Looking for Longleaf), Peter Perret (A Well Tempered Mind: Using Music to Help Children Listen and Learn), Timothy Tyson (Blood Done Sign My Name), Moreton Neal (Remembering Bill Neal: Favorite Recipes from A Life in Cooking), Quinn Dalton (Bulletproof Girl), Henry Petroski (Pushing the Limits: New Adventures in Engineering), Bill Morris (Saltwater Cowboys), Amy Tiemann (Mojo Mom), Robert F. Irwin (Robert F. Irwin 40 Years), Tommy Hays (The Pleasure Was Mine), Mary Kay Andrews (Hissy Fit), Jerry Shinn (Loonis! Celebrating a Lyrical Life), Michael Parker (If You Want Me to Stay), Lawrence Naumoff (A Southern Tragedy, in Crimson and Yellow), Martha Witt (Broken As Things Are) and Gerhard Weinberg (Visions of Victory: The Hopes of Eight World War II Leader).

Funding for North Carolina Bookwatch is provided by UNC-TV members and by Quail Ridge Books and Music, Raleigh’s independent, full service bookstore, bringing readers and writers together since 1984.

North Carolina Bookwatch is part of UNC-TV’s ongoing commitment to produce programs for and about North Carolina. UNC-TV is the statewide 11-station broadcast network of the University of North Carolina. For more information, please visit [ http://www.unctv.org/ncbookwatch ]www.unctv.org/ncbookwatch.

For more information about North Carolina Bookwatch and UNC-TV’s other local productions, please visit our website at [ http://www.unctv.org ]www.unctv.org.

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