Julia Rampen

Julia Rampen is an Edinburgh-based novelist, journalist, poet and Media Director at IMIX, a charity which supports refugees and others affected by the immigration system to tell their stories. Her first novel, The Bay, was published in 2023 after winning the NorthBound Novel Award. Loosely based on the 2004 Morecambe Bay tragedy, it explores the themes of loneliness and intergenerational friendship against the backdrop of a hostile environment. She has participated in events at bookshops and book clubs.

Julia has experience chairing panels at high-profile events including literary festivals and party conferences, and she has appeared on Radio 5 Live, Woman’s Hour and Good Morning Britain as a commentator. She produced and presented a podcast for Laudable, The Brink, exploring Liverpool’s radical politics in the 1980s.

Julia regularly delivers media and storytelling training to those affected by the immigration system, and has supported many individuals to tell their own stories as well as advised on scripts and books. She is the co-founder of Qisetna, a blog set up in 2013 to give a platform to Syrian writers and co-produced several performances with Qisetna at the Scottish International Storytelling Festival in 2016.

(Photo credit: Jason Roberts)