Julie Burchill
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| Julie Burchill | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 3, 1959 Frenchay, Bristol, England |
| Occupation | novelist, columnist |
| Nationality | British |
| Writing period | 1976-present |
Julie Burchill (born July 3, 1959 in Frenchay, Bristol) is an English writer, renowned for her invective and often contentious prose. She is best known as a newspaper columnist, but in June 2007 announced the end of her journalistic career.
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[edit] Life
Julie Burchill was born in Bristol, England to working class parents. She did not attend university, but a teacher at her secondary school apparently told her parents that if she got a job in the local biscuit factory - like others from her school - it would be like putting a pheasant in a fish tank. She started her career, aged 17, as a writer at the New Musical Express (NME) after responding, with her husband-to-be Tony Parsons, to an advert in that paper seeking "hip young gunslingers" to write about the then emerging punk movement. Burchill was briefly married to Parsons and then to Cosmo Landesman, the son of Fran and Jay Landesman. Each marriage produced one son, both of whom live with their fathers. In 1991, Burchill, Landesman and Toby Young established a short-lived magazine Modern Review through which she met Charlotte Raven, with whom she had a much publicised affair. She subsequently married again, to Raven's brother Daniel, a much younger man.[1] She wrote of the joys of having a "toyboy" in her Times "Weekend Review" column. Fellow NME journalist/author Paul Wellings wrote about their friendship in his book I'm A Journalist...Get Me Out Of Here.
In 2003, Burchill was ranked number 85 in Channel 4's poll of 100 Worst Britons. The poll was inspired by the BBC series 100 Greatest Britons, though it was less serious in nature. The aim was to discover the "100 worst Britons we love to hate". The poll specified that the nominees had to be British, alive and not currently in prison or pending trial.
Having previously converted to Christianity, she announced in February 2006 plans for a year's sabbatical from journalism, during which she planned, among other things, to study theology. The Times has recently dropped her Saturday column, and had arranged a more flexible arrangement where Burchill writes for the daily paper.[2] In June 2007 she announced that she would not be returning to journalism, but will instead concentrate on writing books and TV scripts and finally undertake a theology degree.[3] However, she has since returned to writing for the Guardian newspaper.[4]
As well as continuing with her studies, she is working on three books and two documentaries, and has contributed an introduction to the novel A Year in the Life of TheManWhoFellAsleep by Greg Stekelman.
She has lived in Brighton for a number of years and a book on her adopted home town titled "Made In Brighton" (Virgin Books) was published in April 2007. Her house in Brighton was sold around 2005 for £1.5 million,[5] in part the reason why she was able to announce her retirement from journalism.
Burchill has also on occasions expressed concern for animal welfare. She is a supporter of the Safe Haven for Donkeys in the Holy Land.
[edit] Early writings for the NME
In her first few years she was assigned the punk beat and notably wrote the NME review of the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks album on its release in 1977. She left her position at the NME aged 20, saying that writing about music should be a young person's game. She then started freelancing to be able to write about other subjects, although she never completely gave up writing about pop music.
[edit] Career as a columnist and freelancer
Her main employers after the New Musical Express were the Face and The Sunday Times where she wrote about politics, pop, fashion and society. One of her most controversial opinions from her early freelance career concerned the Falklands War in 1982. The left generally condemned it as an imperialist war[citation needed], but Burchill, in common with Christopher Hitchens, argued that the military dictatorship of General Galtieri represented a greater evil. She confounded the left again, and won many admirers on the right, by writing articles favourable to Margaret Thatcher. Her unfashionable sympathy for Thatcher helped in gaining a column for The Mail on Sunday, where in 1987 she went against the paper's usual political line by urging its readers to vote Labour. She also wrote on films for The Sunday Times. For five years until 2003 she wrote a weekly column in The Guardian. One of the pieces she wrote for The Guardian was in reaction to the murder of BBC TV presenter Jill Dando in 1999. She compared the shock of Dando's murder to finding a "tarantula in a punnet full of strawberries".
Burchill left The Guardian acrimoniously, saying in an interview that they had offered her a sofa in lieu of a payrise.[1] She claims to have left the newspaper in protest at what she saw as its "vile anti-Semitism".[6]
Her last regular column as a journalist appeared in The Times. Shortly after starting her weekly column, she referred to George Galloway, but appeared to confuse him with former MP Ron Brown, reporting the misdeeds of Brown as those of Galloway. Galloway threatened legal action which was averted when she apologised and The Times paid damages.[7]
Burchill is noted for her confrontational and iconoclastic views, which have sometimes been criticised as contradictory. In the 1980s, she wrote in favour of Margaret Thatcher, but she has always claimed she has never renounced the Communist beliefs of her youth. She is a consistent defender of the old Soviet Union. Burchill champions the working-class against the middle-class in most cases, and has been particularly vocal in defending the chavs.[8]
Burchill has made frequent attacks on various celebrity figures (notably her former husband Tony Parsons). These attacks have attracted criticism for their cruelty, though her supporters note the self-deprecating aspects of her writing.[citation needed] She is perhaps best known in America for the "Fax wars" or "Battle of the Bitches" with author Camille Paglia.[9]. She has written many books (her novel Ambition was a bestseller in the 1980s), and has made television documentaries about the death of her father from asbestosis and about heat magazine.
Her 2004 lesbian-themed novel for teenagers Sugar Rush was produced by Shine Limited and aired on Channel 4. [10]
As of 2008, Burchill is co-writing a book with Chas Newkey-Burden about modern hypocrisy.
[edit] Bibliography
- The Boy Looked at Johnny co-written with Tony Parsons, 1978
- Love It or Shove It, 1985
- Girls on Film, 1986
- Damaged Gods: Cults and Heroes Reappraised, 1987
- Ambition, 1989
- Sex and Sensibility, 1992
- No Exit, 1993
- Married Alive, 1998
- I Knew I Was Right, 1998, an autobiography
- Diana, 1999
- The Guardian Columns 1998-2000, 2000
- On Beckham, 2002
- Sugar Rush, 2004 (adapted for UK television in 2005)
- Made in Brighton, 2007 co-written with her husband Daniel Raven
[edit] References
- ^ a b Lynn Barber "Growing pains", The Observer 22 August 2004.
- ^ Stephen Brook "Burchill goes on sabbatical for God", The Guardian, 9 February 2006. Retrieved on 23 June 2007.
- ^ Stephen Brook "Julie Burchill bows out of journalism", The Guardian, June 21 2007. Retrieved on 23 June 2007.
- ^ Julie Burchill "Why I Love Tesco", The Guardian, December 19 2007. Retrieved on 20 December 2007.
- ^ Mark Simpson "Cover Story: The queer lady", The Independent on Sunday, 27 March 2005. Retrieved on 22 June 2007.
- ^ "Bleeding-heart ignoramuses", Haaretz, August 11, 2006
- ^ Owen Gibson "Galloway demands Burchill apology", The Guardian, 16 March 2004. Retrieved on 23 June 2007.
- ^ "Yeah but, no but: why I'm proud to be a chav", The Times, February 18 2005.
- ^ "The Battle Of the Bitches: Fax Off and Die You Bitch!", 1993 exchange. Retrieved on 23 June 2007.
- ^ "Filming starts on Burchill's teen drama for Channel 4", Shine: News, 2005. Retrieved on 23 June 2007.
[edit] External links
- Photo
- Unofficial Julie Burchill website
- Guardian columns by Julie Burchill
- Hurricane Julie 2005 Spike Magazine extensive interview with Julie Burchill
- Details of Sugar Rush on Channel 4
- The Julie Burchill Random Recycler
