Julia I. Dreyden was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the second of four daughters with one brother. She is the first in the family to graduate from high school and earned the Bachelor of Arts in Humanities from the New School College, an academically rigorous experimental college. Julia began to read at the college level in the sixth grade. She was impressed with the library of Morgan State University which boasted many authors that Julia had never heard of. She was intrigued, applied for enrollment in the historically black university, and completed the Master of Arts in Renaissance Poetry in 1981. She returned to earn the Doctor of Education in 1987. Julia began writing poetry in 1973 after meeting Gloria Roddey who became her intellectual mentor for seven years. Gloria’s impact was profound. Julia learned classical poetical standards and a rigorous moral bearing from her teaching. Julia was married from 1969 to 1974 and has no children. She has resided in Raleigh, NC, since 1987.