The Life and Writings of Barbara Nelson Blinn

My mother started this book during her high school years. I remember as a ten-year-old year girl Barbara told me she had written “a novel”. She did not attempt to get the novel published because she did not have the emotional or financial support from others to do so in 1980. Barbara was also writing poetry around this time and was finding success with this. She had easier access to enter inexpensive poetry contests than to pursue book publication.

Barbara was also scared of failure. She felt like she failed in so many areas of her life. She did not have the strength to potentially endure another failure. She also had low self-confidence due to her years of abuse by her husband.

Fast forward almost 40 years later. I had an entire bookshelf of Barbara’s writings that I let sit after she died in 2005. My living room was looking cluttered so one day during the spring of 2019 I decided to start organizing all her writings and see if I could do organize them into a publishable format

I came across a draft of this book that was untyped from 1959. Barbara also had a notebook with a typewritten copy which had been marked up from 1980. I painstakingly typed this entire novel into the computer as she had typed it. I then took out the dialect, so it was easier to read, but then put it back in because I thought the dialect gave the book and its characters some great personality. I hope you enjoy the story.  CBW