Meet Our Editors
A science and medical journalist by training, Julia Soplop is the award-winning author of Information Crisis: How a Better Understanding of Science Can Help Us Face the Greatest Problems of Our Time (2024), Equus Rising: How the Horse Shaped U.S. History, Documenting Your World Through Photography, and Untangling the Self-Publishing Process. Her own publishing journey inspired her to open Hill Press to support authors as they navigate self-publishing. Julia spends her free time outdoors: hike, bike, kayak, repeat. She also has a bad case of wanderlust that has taken her all over the world: roaming around inside an active volcano in the Galápagos Islands, trekking through the Indian Himalayas to the source of the Ganges River, and living in a tent in a remote nature reserve in Madagascar studying lemurs. She has a bachelor’s in French from Duke University and a master’s from the Medical Journalism Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Julia’s work has appeared in numerous publications over the last two decades, including National Geographic Magazine, Design Mom, Skiing, and the Summit Daily News. She lives with her husband, their three girls, and a hoop-jumping rescue pup in the woods outside of Chapel Hill, NC. You can find her online at www.juliasoplop.com.
Julia Soplop
Founder, Editor & Publisher
Mari Melby
Editor
Prior to joining Hill Press as an editor, Mari Melby has worked as a public school teacher, a childbirth educator, a birth doula, and a lactation counselor. Along the way, she has blogged, developed marketing materials, and designed and taught curriculum. Her favorite aspect of each role has been the same: creating and shaping content to best fit an organization or author's unique brand, voice, and purpose. A lifelong avid reader, Mari's favorite genres are memoir and Nordic noir. Her favorite season is winter, during which she spends her free time skiing, fat tire biking, and dogsledding outside the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in northern Minnesota. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and Hispanic Studies from Colorado College and a master’s in Curriculum & Instruction from the University of Denver. Mari is currently pursuing a certificate in Copyediting from UC San Diego Extension. She lives with her husband, two children, and their rescue dog, Copper, in Minneapolis, MN. You can find her online at www.marimelby.com.