Roses and Thorns, two-and-a-half years in the making, is the third memoir written by writer/novelist, Barbara Carpenter. Without a Quarter in my Pocket, the memoirs of Dr. S. E. Rubio, a Cuban phys...view moreRoses and Thorns, two-and-a-half years in the making, is the third memoir written by writer/novelist, Barbara Carpenter. Without a Quarter in my Pocket, the memoirs of Dr. S. E. Rubio, a Cuban physician who escaped from Cuba in 1961, was released in 2008. A short time later, she was commissioned to write A Nickel Can of Pork and Beans, the memoirs of Bryan Davidson, founder of WJBD AM/FM, radio broadcasting station in Salem, Illinois. The book was published in 2011.
Carpenter is an award-winning poet, and her short stories and articles have appeared in national magazines, online publications, several Chicken Soup for the Soul books, and the new Not Your Mother’s Book anthology. Her three-book series, Starlight, Starbright, Wish I May, Wish I Might, and The Wish I Wish Tonight, published from 2003–2008, continues to be read and enjoyed nationwide.
The setting, characters, and stories for the first Starlight book originated during the ten years Carpenter was a member of the Cedarhurst Writer’s Roundtable in Mount Vernon, Illinois. With encouragement and critiques of her fellow writers, the book acquired a sequel, but it took a third book to complete the series.
With the conclusion of Roses and Thorns, Barbara Carpenter plans to finish at least one of her four partially written novels. She has many interests, among them: oil painting, quilting, book club, writing, communication with numerous online writers, flower gardening, cooking. She is a voracious reader. She and her husband reside in South Central, Illinois. Their back deck is a fishing rod’s cast from a small lake outside their home in a wooded area, part of a 125-acre farm. They have two children, four grandchildren, and two great-grandsons, as well as an aging rescue chocolate Lab named Speck.view less