The granddaughter of a Harlan County coal miner, Julia Thacker was raised in Dayton Ohio. She first came to Massachusetts as a fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. She has also been the recipient of fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute, the Corporation of Yaddo and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her poems appear in Bennington Review, Gulf Coast, The Massachusetts Review, The New Republic and Pleiades. A portfolio of her work is included in the 25th anniversary issue of Poetry International. Julia has taught writing at Tufts University, Radcliffe Seminars and as poet-in-residence in public schools throughout the state. In 2024, she was an Edith Wharton Writer-in-Residence at The Mount. She lives outside of Boston.