Julia Cameron

Julia Cameron was born in Libertyville, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, and raised Catholic. She was the second oldest of seven children.^[3] She started college at Georgetown University before transferring to Fordham University. She wrote for The Washington Post and then Rolling Stone.^[4]

She met Martin Scorsese while on assignment for Oui Magazine.^[3] They married in 1976 and divorced a year later in 1977. They have one daughter, Domenica Cameron-Scorsese, born in 1976. The marriage ended after Scorsese began seeing Liza Minnelli while the three of them were working on New York, New York.^[3] Cameron and Scorsese collaborated on three films. Her memoir Floor Sample details her descent into alcoholism and drug addiction, which induced blackouts, paranoia and psychosis.^[5] In 1978, reaching a point in her life when writing and drinking could no longer coexist,^[6] Cameron stopped abusing drugs and alcohol, and began teaching creative unblocking, eventually publishing the book based on her work: The Artist's Way.^[5] At first she sold Xeroxed copies of the book in a local bookstore before it was published by TarcherPerigee in 1992.^[3] She contends that creativity is an authentic spiritual path.^[4]

Cameron has taught filmmaking, creative unblocking, and writing. She has taught at The Smithsonian, Esalen, the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies, and the New York Open Center.^[4] At Northwestern University, she was writer in residence for film.^[4] In 2008 she taught a class at the New York Open Center, The Right to Write, named and modeled after one of her bestselling books, which reveals the importance of writing.^[7]

Cameron has lived in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York City, and Washington, D.C.^[2][5] She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.^[3]