Team Bio Series: Julie Titterington (The Mystery Bookworm)

Round two of our team bio series highlights our wonderful Managing Editor (and queen of the turkey leg emoji) Julie! This native Oregonian spends her time “reading early 20th-century mystery novels, staring blankly at her iPhone, and attempting to keep her kids fed, clothed, and relatively uninjured.” She definitely keeps the Merchant Mav team on our toes, never missing a grammar mistake and always keeping it light with a witty remark. Needless to say, we love her and we know you will too!

Name: Julie Titterington

Title: Managing Editor

Hometown: Tualatin, OR

Current City: Canby, OR

Education and background: I have a BA in Writing and Literature from George Fox University, where I minored in Nursing as well. I also went to high school, middle school, elementary school, and Sunday School, so yeah…I’m the whole package. You could not be more educated than I am. (Unless you’re a doctor, lawyer, professor, social worker, teacher, or pretty much anyone else in my immediate family; in those cases, you definitely could).

Merchant Mav department/specialty: I oversee all of the software review categories, along with loans and merchant cash advances. I started out life at MM in the project management department, however, and that is my first love. I use the term ‘love’ loosely here.

How did you discover Merchant Mav?: Not to be too Zen about it all, but I didn’t discover Merchant Mav; it discovered me.  Four years ago I was working as a freelance copywriter, content creator, and jack-of-all-trades, writing BS for products I despised to put food on the table. I actually generated copy for a vaping company. True story. Amad Ebrahimi (the site founder and my good fairy) dug me out of obscurity on a freelancing platform, and it was goodbye to writing about watermelon-flavored tobacco. I’ve never looked back.

Proudest professional moment: My proudest professional moment was the first time a project management company changed their product based on comments in my review. It made me feel like I was writing (and doing) something worthwhile.

Favorite Merchant Maverick post/moment/opportunity: My favorite MM post…that’s a good question. I love writing posts, as they allow me a measure of creativity that I can’t necessarily access with reviews. I probably had the most fun writing a post about negativity bias, which—in a cruel but not unusual twist of fate—is one of my least trafficked pieces of content.

What do you do when you’re not working for Merchant Mav?: Most of my time outside of work is spent bringing up my two kids, Penelope (5) and Malcolm (2). And by bringing up, I mean “feeding, snuggling, loving, sometimes cleaning, and generally preventing death by exposure or injury.” I am rubbish at crafts, and don’t care to read books aloud that were not written by Dr. Seuss, so they’re pretty much on their own after that. I also spend quite a bit of time reading and rereading…dun da da da (!)…British mystery novels written between 1920 and 1970. I own every single Agatha Christie book every written. Ditto for Dorothy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham, Ellis Peters…I could go on.

Favorite summer pastime?: I love to go on walks in the summer. My idea of a perfect summer morning would be to hike two or three miles through the forest and somehow end up at a woodland Starbucks for a Strawberry-Acai Refresher.

Favorite 90s movie: Tricky! I started that decade in 2nd grade and ended it as a high school senior, so my taste in 90s movies is pretty eclectic. If we’re talking early 90s, it’s The Little Mermaid, hands down. Late 90s…? I’m going to call an audible and say The Royal Tenenbaums, which came out in 2001 (close enough, right?) Apparently, I like movies that begin with “The.”

Favorite super hero: I’ve always liked the non-super superheroes, like Iron Man and Batman.

If you had to switch lives with a famous person, who would you pick and why?: I have never wanted to actually be someone other than I am. I’d definitely like to be more talented, more attractive, richer, etc., but as myself. But if I could pick qualities I admire in others, I would choose the finely-honed writing skill of Dorothy Sayers, the quick wit of Michael J. Nelson, and the general lovability of Weird Al.

If you had to pick your theme song, what would it be?: There’s a song in the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta the Mikado called “The Sun Whose Rays.” I love the lyrics and the music. Look it up.

Mac or Windows?: Good question! My husband’s family is firmly in the PC camp (my FIL started working for IBM when it was still a typewriter company.) My own family of origin is Mac-centric. I span the two worlds, alone, using both an iPhone and a PC laptop.

Hidden talent?: Guessing the end of movies. You don’t want me around if you’re watching a movie with a twist.

We’ll never go to the movies with Julie, but we’ll always ask her for book recommendations! For more from Julie, be sure to check her out on Twitter and LinkedIn!

If you missed the first team bio series post, check it out to learn more about our founder, Amad Ebrahimi!