Barbara Locascio

       My first novel was co-written and inspired by my high school friend, Kip, who lived fearlessly within the vastness of her imagination.  Just like the sirens in the Odyssey, I found her call to create impossible to resist.  My repressed idiosyncratic creative juices boiled up inside me, spilling over in response to her call. My dream of becoming a writer was

set free.  We wrote humorous philosophical (we thought) letters under the name of the philosophers Voltaire (Kip) and Rousseau (me) and short stories about friends and their relationships.  In our self-published novel, The Adventures of Red Roger and the Goodie Goddess, we took the liberty of embellishing the hapless escapades of my quirky redheaded boyfriend and me.  There was only one copy of the hand written book, which we bound between two pieces of stained wood tied with a leather strap.  Kip burned the title of the book into the front cover.  It was given as a gift to Red Roger, then stolen back when we broke up.  I've lost track of Kip, my first muse, and our novel, but will forever be grateful for her provocative pull to unleash my creative self.

       I have been writing in one way or another since, be it in my personal journals or professionally.  I received my Bachelors Degree in Journalism in 1979.  I was quickly hired by my local paper to write stories about small town life and personalities. After a month or so, I was given the freedom to come up with some of my own story ideas.    I became intrigued with social and mental health issues, often hanging out at the local Mental Health Center where I'd interview the therapists about things like incest, alcoholism and child abuse. Many of my articles appeared on the front page until the publisher started getting calls about how depressing the previously upbeat little paper had become.  My published work also includes professional newsletters, journal articles, brochures, education materials, and an article in the magazine New Conversations - the Design of Faith.  In 1988, I earned my Masters Degree in Social Work, fulfilling my other dream of becoming a psychotherapist.

     To find out more about my Counseling and Psychotherapy practice, Polarity and Reiki energy work, Workshops, Clinical Supervision and Consultation services go to Windhorse Rising Workshops.

       Presently, I've decided to put all other types of writing, with the exception of my personal journaling, on the back burner to devote my writing time to finishing my as yet untitled novel.  An excerpt is provided below:

       Daddy reached over and put his big hand on the back of Todd's head, scooping Todd in toward him, then kissed his forehead.  He put his mouth to Todd's ear as though he were about to whisper something to him, but before he could get the words out, my other brother, Jacob, who was almost 17 then, burst through the screen door from the back porch dressed in his yellow and black high school uniform trumpeting "You Are My Sunshine"--the song he'd sung to me as far back as I can remember.  Jacob said the light in my smile always made him happy  when skies are blue, like it says in the song.  And my long, shiny strawberry blonde hair, then as now, as fine and as ungovernable as corn silk released from the husks, reminded him of sunbeams the way it flared-out around my face.

       I adored Jacob so much that I'd already proposed to him about five million times.  I thought that Jesus must have looked something like Jacob.  On occasion, I even imagined that Jacob might be Jesus, back just to watch over me.  He was certainly  a beatific embodiment in my childhood world.  He was tall and sinewy, like Daddy, with waves of silky amber hair that, in spite of much protest on my father's part, fell almost to the middle of his  back.  He also had Daddy's twinkling, golden brown eyes that mama said made all the high school girls swoon. Indeed, girls were always calling Jacob back then.  Often the calls made me jealous.  Then, Todd, the keeper of reality and practicality in our otherwise dreamy clan, explained to me, after yet another one of my huffy fits following a call from Jacob's girlfrend, Melisssa, that it's a major sin to marry a family member.  Claire, overhearing Todd's sermon, added that, even thought I couldn't marry Jacob, as his sister I would forevermore be involved and special in his life, whereas girlfriends would come and go.  After that, convinced that being a sister was superior to being a wife, I never again proposed.  Ironically, I never married either.

       Another quality Jacob inherited from Daddy was his propensity for fun, which I would later learn, much to my great despair, had a dark side that Daddy's did not.  On that day, however, his personal serenade of "our song," as I thought of it, got us up singing, mostly out of tune, and dancing.  We twirled and swayed--me in my tutu, Daddy in his cowboy hat, and Jacob, handsome as always, in his band uniform.  Only Todd remained at the table, his head bowed down in thought.