JULIE SALAMON

Author. Journalist. Storyteller.

I’ve been lucky to have a career doing what I love—figuring out the world through writing.  That’s included the privilege of working with and learning from brilliant editors at distinguished publishing houses, newspapers and magazines.

My professional life began at The Wall Street Journal, as a business reporter for five years and then, for eleven years, as the newspaper’s film critic. I started writing books. There have been 13 of them, fiction and non-fiction, for adults and children. Five of the books for adults were edited by the legendary editor Ann Godoff at Penguin Press, who commissioned the book I am working on now, currently titled Ghosts of Tenth Avenue. Sadly, Ann died on February 26, 2026, leaving a huge chasm in the publishing world and in my heart.  She left me in the kind and seriously capable hands of Kiara Barrow at Penguin.

My four children’s books were created in collaboration with the marvelous illustrator Jill Weber.  Our latest, One More Story, Tata, an homage to my extraordinary mother Lilly Salcman, was published in 2024.

Along the way came a return to daily journalism for a few years, as a critic and reporter for The New York Times, My work has appeared in several magazines, including The New Yorker, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Town and Country and Avenue as well as several anthologies.

During the pandemic, I found a new storytelling medium. In early 2020 Audible Originals asked me to write and perform Unlikely Friends  an audio- memoir about my Appalachian girlhood .  A year later, Campside Media and Turner Classic Movies commissioned me to revisit my Hollywood tale The Devil’s Candy as a podcast series, Season Two of TCM’s The Plot Thickens. Both were delightful experiences with the pleasure of working with talented young producers. The Devil’s Candy  podcast was recognized by The New York Times and NPR and others as among the top podcasts of 2021!  And in 2023, The Hollywood Reporter placed the book  at #25 on its list of “100 Best Movie Books of All Time!”

Community means a lot to me, in writing and in life. I am board chair of BRC, a leading non-profit organization in New York City that provides housing and treatment services to thousands of homeless adults. I am also on the board of  the American Jewish Historical Society, where I host an eclectic monthly interview series called At Lunch.

My education has come from many places, with degrees are from North Adams High School in Adams County, Ohio (1971); Tufts University (1975); New York University School of Law (1978).

Downtown Manhattan has been my home since graduating from college. That’s where my husband (as well as toughest and best editor) Bill Abrams and I  raised our children Roxie and Eli along with three cats and two dogs (not all at once!)  Our family has expanded to include son-in-law Graeme Daubert and grandson Harlan. My first eighteen years were spent in Seaman, Ohio, a rural village of 800, where my father was the town doctor. He and my mother, Czech immigrants and Holocaust survivors, taught me and my sister Suzy to keep moving toward our destination, even when we weren’t quite sure what it was.

Photo credit: Winnie Au

Agent: Dorian Karchmar, William Morris Endeavor

http://www.davesaysmoviesmatter.com/julie-salamon-the-devils-candy-revisited.html

Authorlink interview (2001)

New York Times profile (1996)

Philanthropy News Digest (2004)

New York Times profile (2021)

https://shepherd.com/book/the-devils-candy