Barbara Jane Paron

Author photo courtesy of the author.

Barbara Jane Paron (pronounced pair-in) was raised on skis in the lake-effect snowbelt of western New York State until her father’s career in the eastern ski industry landed the family on a Vermont mountainside in the 1960s. With the exception of one year living in Chicago as a working tourist, she has been a Vermont resident ever since. A loner from a young age, insatiable reading habits evolved into a writing habit. Rather than diplomas, her writing is the result of high degrees of curiosity, desire, observation, and persistence. A touchstone of hers is the Margaret Atwood quote, “You become a writer by writing. There is no other way.”

Being a freelance proofreader for book designers and compositors for twelve years exposed her to the insights of professional editors and nurtured brevity and clarity in her own writing. She strives for accessible literary fiction that is serious but not angst driven, and she has an affinity for entwining the natural with the spiritual as offered in her novel, The Patron.

Her home in Vermont provides inspiration, but the choice of themes for her novels is not limited to the region. Her work is rooted in diverse locales and events that find characters on the cusp of change and consequence. Vermont, however, always makes an appearance as a supporting character.

A gardener, landscaper, maple-syrup maker, and former hospice volunteer, she is also a dedicated back-road walker. Her husband, a carpenter and honest critic, has been known to take a hammer and saw to her draft manuscripts.

The Patron is Barbara’s first published novel. While in progress, an excerpt was a finalist for the Glimmer Train Press Fiction Open Award.

A link to her personal website is forthcoming.