I wrote fairly bad poetry and a novel at the age of nine in my blue bedroom. I graduated from Barnard College/Columbia University and worked in communications at great companies like CBS, Harcourt Brace and UC San Diego. On the side, I published pieces in newspapers and magazines, and my novel attracted the attention of Hollywood for a nanosecond. I also was an instructor, ghostwriter and keynote speaker for audiences of close to a thousand.
A couple of years ago, I had a serious illness. When my son flew to Lenox Hill Hospital to be by my side, I was hooked up to IVs, too weak to get up. I could barely whisper. As he stood beside me, I didn’t think about dying one way or another. I thought: My son doesn’t even know me.
While recuperating at home, I wrote about my own personal journey. It was immensely rewarding. I realized I could make a difference in the lives of others by helping them tell their stories. That was the beginning of Writing Life Stories.
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” – Joan Didion
Books by Barbara Field
The Deeper, The Bluer
“Barbara Field has a keen eye and clear head and a voice that sounds like no one else’s. Her work should be read because it’s smart and true and because she uses language beautifully.”
-Alice McDermott, National Book Award Winner
• Winner of 1st place for Mainstream Fiction
• 14th Annual Writer’s Digest International Self-Published Book Awards (2007).
• Garnered attention from Miramax & HBO.
In this remarkable debut novel set in San Diego, 16-year-old Claire thinks she is pregnant. As spring turns into summer she learns all about motherhood–especially single motherhood–from four fascinating women who meet around a turquoise, community pool.
Claire’s mother, Viginia, is HIV positive, a gutsy southerner on an unusual quest. Claire’s boyfriend’s mother, Molly, a poetic soul, has left behind a world of spousal abuse in Seattle. Renata, another mother, is an elegant New York lawyer who watches her picture-perfect life come undone. And Dorie, a wild would-be writer and young mother, seeks to feel at whatever cost. Until the unspeakable happens.
Like The Joy Luck Club and Waiting to Exhale, The Deeper, The Bluer is about friendship between women, about mothers and daughters, about celebration and loss. It also reveals the aching desire of a teenage girl to save her mother, make sense of her world, to love and be loved. As Claire says, “Real love must be the tightest sucking in of breath, a hold so pure and lube, the deepest blue you can imagine.” An unforgettable and moving story that will resonate long after it’s been read.” Buy on Amazon.