Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. – Mary Oliver

Julie Pesano is a teacher, traveler, and award-winning writer who weaves all three into a creative life. Since 1997, she has taught English composition and literature at De Anza College in Cupertino, California, where her most meaningful teaching and learning experiences have grown out of study abroad.

Her love of international education began in Cambridge, England during graduate school and deepened through extended study in Oxford and Paris. She has taught college study-abroad programs in Paris and London, guiding students through literature, history, and close observation while encouraging them to experience the city itself as a living text.

Paris has become a particular creative home where she returns to again and again as a teacher, writer, and collaborator. She regularly assists with Paris Writing Workshops, leading literary walks, discussions, and reflective writing that invite participants to slow down, pay attention, and engage more deeply with the city and their own creative process.

Inspired by her travels, Julie has written literary tours of England, Paris, and Northern California, following in the footsteps of writers whose lives were shaped by landscape. More than traditional travel narrative, her work blends literary criticism, pilgrimage, and transformational memoir, exploring how place awakens memory, voice, and insight.

Julie lives in San Francisco, where she hikes the headlands, frequents independent bookstores, and writes with a hot cup of British tea. She believes that every journey, across oceans or inward, is ultimately a way of coming home.