Julie Burchill (born 3 July 1959 in Frenchay, Bristol) is an English writer and columnist, renowned for her invective and often contentious prose for a number of publications over the last thirty years. Beginning as a writer for the New Musical Express at the age of 17, she has written for newspapers such as The Sunday Times and The Guardian. Despite her prominence, she has her detractors. For Michael Bywater Burchill's "insights were, and remain, negligible, on the level of a toddler having a tantrum"