Julia Colter Pottinger is a best-selling American writer of historical romances, who says she chose the penname Julia Quinn so her Regency romances would be on bookshelves next to those of the successful romance writer Amanda Quick. She has appeared on the New York Times Bestseller List four times.

Julia Colter obtained a degree in Art History form Harvard, later she decided to attend medical school. She started writing her first book one month after finishing college and she postponed medical school for two years while she wrote two more novels. After only a few short months of studying medicine in Yale University, however, she realized that she would much preferred writing to dissections. She left medical school and devoted herself full-time to her writing.
Married to Paul Pottinger, she lives in Colorado.