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“It was just as important for me to write a love story where the woman falls back in love with herself as much as falling in love with a man.” — Julee Balko
Julee Balko is a returning guest — an author, poet, and freelance writer whose third novel, Square Hearts, dropped this past May from Black Rose Writing. Mike and Julee pick up where they left off two years ago (her last visit was for The Me List) and dig into how grief becomes creative fuel, why she gave five chapters to a neurodivergent child’s point of view, and what happens when your neighbor turns out to be a narcissist. They also swap stories about losing parents, the dietary habits of grieving fathers, and why Hallmark movies are basically therapy. Plus: Julee teases a fourth novel about a woman whose romance-novel obsession starts to wreck her marriage.
Key Takeaways:
1. Teachers can decide your career. Julee traces her entire writing life back to her fourth and fifth grade teachers who made a big deal about her writing. That early encouragement became identity — she never stopped thinking of herself as a writer.
2. Grief got her to the page. Her debut, The Things We Keep, was written after her mother passed — during the sleep-deprived early days of raising twins. Square Hearts revisits grief not as a wound to process but as something you learn to carry while opening yourself to love again.
3. Neurodivergent daughters inspired neurodivergent representation. Julee has three neurodivergent daughters and noticed that girls with autism are underrepresented in fiction. She interviewed multiple children to build the character of Daisy, who gets five chapters from her own point of view. Readers with autistic children have told her she got it right.
4. The narcissist next door came from real life. After a friendship with a narcissist ended, Julee became fascinated not by the narcissist’s behavior but by how her own behavior changed in response. That observation became the character Mave — a cautionary take on “found family” gone wrong.
5. Square Hearts is a love story with a twist. It’s a second-chance romance, but the real love story is Nicola falling back in love with herself. The title comes from the idea that every heart has four sides — and after loss, you have to figure out how to put those sides back together.
6. Book four is underway. Julee is about halfway through a novel about a woman obsessed with romance novels whose lofty expectations start undermining her marriage. She describes it as snarky — comparisons between steamy book boyfriends and the reality of heating pads in a long marriage.
Connect with Julee:
Website: https://juleebalko.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juleebalko/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@juleebalko
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Julee-Balko-author-101311256267474
Threads: https://www.threads.com/@juleebalko
Twitter: https://twitter.com/misplacedcomma2
Connect with Mike:
Website: https://uncorkingastory.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@uncorkingastory
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/uncorkingastory/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/uncorkingastory
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@uncorkingastory
Twitter: https://twitter.com/uncorkingastory
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