Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Chris Barili. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Chris thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
I started writing when I was 16 years old. I had learned a great deal from reading authors like Tolkien, Eddings, Brooks, and so on, so I thought I’d give it a shot. My high school English teachers helped me, and I further honed my skills at the Univeristy of Nebraska Omaha’s Writers Workshops.
But I wasn’t publishing, and for the longest time I couldn’t figure out why. In 2013, frustrated and ready to give up, I used my GI bill to enroll in the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program at Western State Colorado Universty as a last resort. I mean, I was 48, so for 34 years I kept doing something at which I was failing. I prayed that the professors in Gunnison would sprinkle the magical dust on me to get me published.
And they did. My first class was on learning the genres, and the professor had me–a fantasy writer–write a western short story. The result was a piece called “Yellow,” and I sold both to The Western Online, which is now defunct. The course had taught me to stop trying to force every story into a literary piece, and to embrace the commercial genres. The result is that as of right now, I have sold two novels and 14 short stories.
Chris, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Question one answers the first part of this.
What do I provide? Simple: escape. Most readers of commercial fiction read to escape their version of reality, even if it’s just for a little while. Some people snort at that and art must enlighten the mind, but I think escape fiction is just as important. One fan told me that my story The Shriveled Boy helped her deal with abuse she’d suffered. Another said Cell Service helped him with the grief of divorce.
That’s what I am most proud of: touching people’s hearts. And if my writing career would end tomorrow, I would carry that with me wherever I went. And I am also proud of the fact that I’ve published in almost every genre: fantasy, science fiction, horror, romance, dark fantasy, western, urban fantasy, and supernatural romance.
For those wondering what they will or won’t get when they open a story of mine, that’s it. You’ll get a story told in the genre in which it should be, not shoe-horned into an ill-fitting structure because the author is stuck in one or two genre. They may have to create psuedonyms to avoid old-fashioned that men can’t write romance, women can’t write Sci-Fi, and so on. I did.
And finally, a word about publishing. It is extremely difficult to publish traditionally. Getting an edior who sees a hundred manuscripts a day to see yours out of that stack (called the “slush pile,” by the way, is a difficult feat. I was lucky to have had Winlock/Permuted Press publish Smothered (as B.T. Clearwater), and Kevin J. Anderson’s Wordfire press publish Shadow Blade. Both gave me unparalleled influence on things like cover art, back cover, bios, and so on, but when the rights reverted back to me, I took both ao an even smaller press: Wordcrafter Books, under Kaye Lynn Booth. And after three short stories and one novel (Shadow Blade) being reborn through Wordcrafter, I should have three more shorts in her anthologies by Christmas, and on June 1st, my first book (as B.T. Clearwater) will be re-released by Kaye. It’s an exciting time.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
I think my resilience shows in the ways I have bounced back from setbacks in the last few months, as my PD’s progression picked up speed. I successfully held it almost at bay for 7-8 years through a rigorous program of exercises including mountain biking, weight lifting and martial arts. But I’d lost the ability to exercise that much due to a heavy work schedule, and PD wasted no time in using that to his advantage.
My writing is probably impacted the most by the progression of this disease. My handwriting has grown tiny and almost impossible to read, so using my old haldwritten journals – which is my favorite method for all my journalling is using a book or notebook with lined college rule paper, but I can no longer use them for anyting I need to read again later. It doesn’t help that PD is also affecting my vision. If you thinabout it, it makes sense. Muscles make our eyes move, open and close, and so on. This results in double-vision, moving words or letters, and so on.
So my writing stopped for a few years. That’s life, and I don’t regret taking that timne off because I needed to take care of as many of these things as I could.
And it affected more than just my wrting. I am still a full-time, 4o-hour per week civilian employee of the US Army, doingf imagery analysis fjor a host of customers andwarfighters aroundthe work. I applied for a clinical trial thsty was showing “life-changing” results, but during screening they detected damage to my brain’s white matter, meaning that if something happened during the proedure, I could have suffered a brain bleed. One more reason for hope was gone.
Then, last February, my father died
Writing seemed like a silly thing, superfluous and indulgent. I couldn’t find a creative spark in me. I struggled to get out of bed, lost interest in work. And didn’t write a single word for almost a year.
And of course, this is when Kay started asking for stories. Fortunatey, I had a stockpile of stories, including almost 20 ghost stories, that I had written, edited, and put aside, and that pile of stories kept me connected with the writing world. I was able to dig up old stories for her anthologies, and eventually, things started looking up.
I only need to do this for another year and 7 months. Then I can take regular retirement and do more of the things I need to do to fight this monster.
How’d you meet your business partner?
I met Kaye Lynne Booth at Western State Colorado University. She was part of my class of creative writers, and she was also part of the first class of students to earn a certificate of publishing for learning the ins and outs of that world. My most memorable story of Kaye was near the end of the program, when we were all preparing to present our theses, which were all novel-length commercial fiction. We had to a choose a classmate to read parto f your thesis.
I chose Kaye.
If you’ve read Smothered, you know there is exactly on sex scene, and in it, while Annie and Mike are inthe throes of passion, the ghost of Annie’s dead mother appears at the foot of the bed, throwing wet blanket over the mood.
Kaye has a unique voice, with a rasp that was like none I’d ever heard. And of course, she exagerrated that rasp during the reading so it came out sounding something like a cross betwen Roz from Monsters Inc reading a story from Playboy. It had us all laughing at a time when we needed it.’
Now Kaye runs WordCrafter Books, putting that publishing certificate to good use. She has several better-known authors on her list, but when I asked if she wanted more from me, her reply was, “I want to publish anything you write.” So while WordCrafter is small, I am happy to be a part of it. Kaye’s “Midnight Series” of dark fiction anthologies has featured two of my short stories, with two more due out this fall. In fact, here’s a list of my short stories and the upcoming Wordcrafter anthologies they’re in:
– Midnight Roost features my story, “Shaken.”
– Midnight Oil gives a home to “The Snow Globe.”
– Legends: Monsters That Go Bump in the Night will feature my story “The Legend of Trooper 666.” (Due out this fall)
– Midnight Madness will publish my story, “The Headmaster Burns.”
– And 12 Dark Nights of Christmas could feature some flash fiction p ieces of mine.
So it has turned out to be a great partnership so far, and Ias long as Kaye is willing to run these anthologies, it will remain so.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.authorchrisbarili.ink
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=author%20chris%20barili
- Linkedin: authorchrisbarili
- Twitter: @authorchrisbarili
- Youtube: ShakeNShred
- Other: Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Chris-Barili/author/B00NA04S8W?qid=1454355030&sr=8-2&ref=ap_rdr&shoppingPortalEnabled=true&ccs_id=8412fbe7-5b2c-4084-9eca-6ad4731072c2
Image Credits
All belong to me