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| Author Bio |
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Nancy Owens Barnes’ writing has been published in
a variety of magazines and
literary journals, including Snowy Egret, the oldest independent journal of nature writing in
the United States. In 2008 Barnes received the Zola Award when her poetry won first place Pacific
Northwest Writers Association Literary Contest and in 2007 the
Coeur d'Alene Chapter of the
Idaho Writers League presented her with the Jessie Cameron Alison Writer
of the Year Award. Her first book, South to Alaska, was
originally published
in October 2007 by New Leaf Books. In their Winter-Spring 2010 issue,
Coeur d'Alene Magazine featured Barnes as one of nine North Idaho
writers who have achieved wide acclaim for their writing. Her articles
have been published in Idaho Magazine, We Alaskans, and
Northern Reach Magazine, for which she is a regular contributor. Barnes received her Bachelor of Arts Degree from Vermont College of Norwich University where she studied creative writing. After spending her childhood and young adult years in eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas, she left for Alaska in 1973 where she lived more than 25 years in such places as Ketchikan, Juneau, Anchorage and Barrow, a village on the northern coast of the Arctic Ocean. In 1999 she moved to northern Idaho where she now resides.
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| A Couple of Thoughts on Writing |
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Got
Writing Struggles?
by Nancy Owens Barnes Here is a tidbit I ran across when I first began writing and have kept in my files for years. Many times when I have become overwhelmed by a particular writing task, I think back to this passage and it has helped me dig my way out again. "If I could do this book properly it would be one of the really fine books and a truly American book. But I am assailed with my own ignorance and inability. I’ll just have to work from a background of these. Honesty. If I can keep an honesty it is all I can expect of my poor brain…If I can do that it will be all my lack of genius can produce. For no one else knows my lack of ability the way I do. I am pushing against it all the time.” This quote comes from the daily journal of John Steinbeck, written less than four weeks after beginning The Grapes of Wrath.
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Writing Naturally
by Nancy Owens Barnes Several years ago the realization that my education as a writer had always been within my reach---waiting for me to simply pick it up and put it to use---finally revealed itself. I was reminded of this recently while reading David Petersen’s, Writing Naturally: A Down-to-earth Guide for Nature Writing, in which he writes:
During my final two years at Vermont College, students were required to read and annotate twenty books in their area of study per semester, approximately one book per week. As I worked my way through book after book, I began to see that, although my classes and instructors provided me specific instruction, mentoring, and structure, the books provided the education. The books documented life---its mysteries, its dreams, its facts, its ideas---and each one was not a product authored by a faceless abstract being, but the manifestation of an individual’s heart and mind. I learned to read as a writer, to focus on how the authors told their stories; their techniques, their tone, their structure. Yes, attend writing workshops, conferences, and classes to connect with other writers and to gain new ideas and guidance. But you must also read, read, read. Read every book on writing instruction you can get your hands on. If you want to write mysteries, read mysteries. If you want to write poetry, read poetry. If you want to write, read. My grandmother once sent me a homemade bookmark on which she scribbled the words of Mark Twain:
Books hold the world between their covers, and it is there simply for the taking. |
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―Barnes' books also available through online booksellers and your local bookstores― |
Copyright 2009
Nancy Owens Barnes
