Authors

My first memory of Edinburgh is of a fairytale city with a castle, grand old streets, and shops full of tartan dolls and sticks of pink rock. The big castle was gloomy and scary (I was only four), but I was entranced by what seemed to be a Cinderella Castle, like the one in my storybook, on Princes Street. So I whined until I got my own Cinderella Castle – a small, plastic model of the Scott Monument. Even now, when I step off the train from Glasgow, it seems strangely like something out of a fairytale, stuck bang in the middle of Princes Street. I like to write exciting, unusual, extraordinary stories, often about outsiders trying to find their place in the world. OneCity tackles things close to my heart.


My first book, The Spark Gap, was about homeless runaways in Glasgow. Exodus and Zenith are epic stories of young survivors desperate for a home on a future, flooded Earth. It’s been wonderful to win awards for my books but the best thing is hearing from so many passionate young readers all over the world.


Visit Julie’s own website at www.juliebertagna.com


An extract from The Portobello Piper By Julie Bertagna
 

The Piper seemed to blow in on a sea wind. The first anyone knew of him was the sound of bagpipes across the Portobello sands. It was a bitterly cold Tuesday morning and the sun was still yawning in thick blankets of sea mist. High on its rocky hill, Edinburgh’s ancient castle seemed to float in the pearly light like a great ship lost in fog.
   The Portobello Piper, as he came to be known, appeared out of the mist. Tiny tornadoes of sand whirled around his feet, like dervishes dancing to his strange music. It was almost as if, said the early morning dogwalkers, the Piper had walked right out of the sea.

Read the full story in Our City, available from Polygon in November 2008.