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Barbara Claypole White grew up in the English village of Turvey with big dreams of becoming a novelist.
After a detour through womens and medieval history at York University, she landed a job promoting London fashion.
She was part of the first British Designer Show, measured celebrities in their underwear, and worked for the queen of the international rag trade, Dame Vivienne Westwood.
Five years passed; then Barbara learned she was pregnant, and her husband was offered a distinguished professorship at UNC Chapel Hill. The family moved to the North Carolina forest, and Barbara became a stay-at-home mom and a woodland gardener factors that would shape her writing voice. She returned to her manuscript, took evening classes in writing at the local arts center, and slammed into another detour: her young son developed obsessive-compulsive disorder.
From that moment, fascination with mental illness framed her life. She ditched her first novel and began writing Dogwood Days, which turned into The Unfinished Garden. She also joined a nonfiction project for parents of children with invisible disabilities and blogs through the highs and lows of OCD at www.easytolovebut.com.
(Her son is now an award-winning poet and musician attending college in the Midwest.)
After a detour through womens and medieval history at York University, she landed a job promoting London fashion.
She was part of the first British Designer Show, measured celebrities in their underwear, and worked for the queen of the international rag trade, Dame Vivienne Westwood.
Five years passed; then Barbara learned she was pregnant, and her husband was offered a distinguished professorship at UNC Chapel Hill. The family moved to the North Carolina forest, and Barbara became a stay-at-home mom and a woodland gardener factors that would shape her writing voice. She returned to her manuscript, took evening classes in writing at the local arts center, and slammed into another detour: her young son developed obsessive-compulsive disorder.
From that moment, fascination with mental illness framed her life. She ditched her first novel and began writing Dogwood Days, which turned into The Unfinished Garden. She also joined a nonfiction project for parents of children with invisible disabilities and blogs through the highs and lows of OCD at www.easytolovebut.com.
(Her son is now an award-winning poet and musician attending college in the Midwest.)
Genres: Literary Fiction
Novels
The Unfinished Garden (2012)
The In-Between Hour (2013)
The Perfect Son (2015)
The Echoes of Family (2016)
The Promise Between Us (2018)
The In-Between Hour (2013)
The Perfect Son (2015)
The Echoes of Family (2016)
The Promise Between Us (2018)
Barbara Claypole White recommends
When the Jessamine Grows (2024)
Donna Everhart
"In a powerful coming-of-age story that pitches southern charm against dark family secrets, the voice of 11-year-old Dixie Dupree captivates from the first page to the last."
The Wild Between Us (2023)
Amy Hagstrom
"If the tragedy that defined your life threatens to repeat, is it a moment of reckoning or redemption? That question drives this gripping dual-timeline story set in the Sierra Nevada. As rescuers race to find two missing boys, the mission reunites key players in an unsolved disappearance from fifteen years earlier. Packed with secrets, guilt, and regret, I loved every heart-pounding moment with Silas, Meg, and Danny. The Wild Between Us is a phenomenal debut!"
The Half of It (2023)
Juliette Fay
"What a sweet, tender, thought-provoking story about the messy layers of love, friendship, and family that entwine when two childhood friends with unfinished business reconnect as young grandparents... a unique twist on the theme of second chances."
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