We welcome Julia Davis as our new Culture Columnist. She began her writing career as a reporter at the Old Colony Memorial, and later worked as a book editor and communications consultant in Boston and New York before returning to Plymouth, where her family settled in the 1980s and where she now lives among longtime friends and familiar shoreline paths.
She is the author of Catbird, a 2025 Zibby Award winner and CIBA semifinalist described as an urgent, lyrical meditation on the war in Ukraine. She has also worked as a ghostwriter and freelance magazine writer. Her byline has appeared in The Boston Business Journal, Entrepreneur, Interiors, and Contract Design. Her creative work has appeared in The Bangalore Review, The Dillydoun Review, and other literary journals. She holds a BA from Boston College and an MFA in Creative Writing from Fairfield University.
During her communications career, Davis worked on public relations and public health campaigns with figures including Dennis Haysbert, Salma Hayek, and Macy Gray, and served as spokesperson for South Station during both Occupy Boston and the Boston Marathon bombing.
“I look forward to writing the Culture Column because culture is essential to a full life,” Davis said. “I am excited to be back in Plymouth because if you look around in Plymouth, we live in paradise. You don’t fully realize that until you spend a decade or so away.”
When she’s not writing, Davis enjoys paddleboarding along Plymouth’s waterways, cross-country skiing, gardening, birdwatching, and walking the beach in search of shells she absolutely does not need but brings home anyway. She also bakes artisan organic honey sourdough bread for friends and family. She and her husband, Matthew, have four grown children.