ABOUT THE AUTHOR

O.J. Barré hails from the lushly forested, red-clay hills near Atlanta, Georgia. From birth, O.J. was a force of nature. Barefoot and freckled, headstrong and gifted, she was, and is, sensitive to a fault. Books became her refuge as a young child, allowing O.J. to escape her turbulent alcoholic home on adventures to untold places and times. Her daddy's mother was a Willoughby, making O.J. a direct descendant of William the Conqueror. Her Awen series is a love letter to that distant past.

O.J. & Bugsy, April 2019

This peek into O.J.'s life was written in 2012, the year the Awen trilogy was birthed.

"How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live." ~Henry David Thoreau, Journal, 19 August 1851

I am convinced that the first fifty years of my life were in preparation for where I am today: perched on the precipice of the next fifty years, laptop in hand pounding keys. I understand this now. The signs that eluded me parade across my mind, no longer allowing me to look away.

• I was precocious
• Talked in sentences before I could pronounce the words
• Read by age four, voraciously by age seven
• Always at the head of the class in vocabulary and reading comprehension
• Loved and aced English classes
• Typically the last standing in spelling bees
• Words fascinate and excite me
• Learning thrills me
• Research feeds me
• I am 'highly sensitive' and feel more deeply than most
• I know things, often before others
• I am fated to ponder
• And compelled to share the resultant AHA's
• Stories find me, characters whisper in my ear
• To not write is unthinkable

Some might call me a late bloomer. That's okay. I have amassed 20+ years of schooling concurrent with 37 years of various and sundry jobs, two careers and 55 years of living. By Thoreau's reckoning, my season is now.

I am a writer. I have paid my dues. Words have my heart. It is who I am. It is what I must do. I am a writer.

Roam with me here, on the pages of my website. You'll read about my books and the path I travel/ed along the way. I talk about writing. Self-publishing. And, oh yeah, a lot about living.

To stay abreast of O.J.'s latest, subscribe to her newsletter. As an added bonus, you'll get a free copy of her Awen prequel novelette, The Druids of Marduk, Part I.

O.J. Barré is the author of the Awen trilogy, an urban fantasy set in 2042. Steeped in current, ancient, and future history twists, Book One, Awen Rising, debuted July 27, 2019. Book Two, Awen Storm, released May 2020. Book Three, Awen Tide, arrives Summer 2022.