O. J. BARRÉ

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 the confines of 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.

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Many of O.J.'s favorite novels are those with animal characters. In the early 2000s, Terry Brooks's Magic Kingdom for Sale/Sold leapt off the racks of her local Barnes & Noble and into her hands, changing O.J.'s life forever. With its quirky dog-scribe Abernathy and the other talking animal and earth characters, this series became one of O.J.'s favorites. Brooks's juxtaposition of a fantastical world within our day-to-day one directly influenced the creation of the Awen trilogy. O.J.'s love of meditation, natural healing, nature, and cinema can also be found in the pages of her novels.

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A child of the '60s and '70s, O.J. cut her teeth on the classics, reading every book her local library had to offer, including Animal Farm at the tender age of eight. A tomboy, she rode horses, climbed trees, waded in creeks, and cheered, all while excelling in English classes and maintaining a straight-A average in school.

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Majoring in business in college, O.J. graduated cum laude with a BBA in both Accounting and Finance. She later went on to earn her Doctor of Chiropractic degree, graduating summa cum laude. Then, in the early 2000s, O.J.'s lifelong love affair with words and reading compelled her to finally sit down and begin writing. She poured out her heart in a memoir, then lost it to a crashed hard drive. After recovering from that blow, O.J. received an idea for a children's book, and in the blink of an eye, Frank and Ernie Find Home was born. That manuscript currently resides on a treasured thumb drive, but someday Frank and Ernie WILL find a home.

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O.J.'s next writing adventure was a women's fiction novel, written when the title came in a flash of inspiration while driving in North Georgia. That title will be revamped and published at some point, along with a series of other novels starring  Sammy Starr.

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When ideas for the AWEN TRILOGY would not relent, she sidelined Sammy's project and dove into the fantastical Awen Universe. At present, this consists of AWEN RISING, AWEN STORM, and the soon-to-be-released AWEN TIDE. Plus, two short-read Awen prequels, THE DRUIDS OF MARDUK, PTS I & II. Part III will complete the prequel and is due out after AWEN TIDE.