Bates, Julia: - I grew up in a small town on a country road outside of Pittsburgh, PA. I moved to Chandler, AZ, after a year and a half of community college, where I met and married my husband. Shortly after our wedding, we moved back to his home state of MI and raised our children in the Kalamazoo area. A few years after we became empty nesters, we relocated to Knoxville, then Maryville, TN. During the finalizing of my first book, most of our time is spent in the Georgetown/Leander, TX area.