Brad Barkley

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New novel is officially out on sub! #fingerscrossed @jennaschmenna.bsky.social

Thanks for the shout out!

Very pleased to have my Work appear today in the amazing @flashfrog.bsky.social ! Thanks also to Ali for the beautiful artwork. ❤️

Soooo freaking thrilled about this! I could not put Brad's book down... brilliant social commentary, gorgeous writing, layered characters that felt incredibly real... not to mention it has Bots and we all know I'm a sucker for 'em. 😂 Lit fic editors WATCH OUT. 👀

@stormliterary.bsky.social

Brad Barkley Brad Barkley is the author of Money, Love and Alison’s Automotive Repair Manual , named among the Best Books of the Year by The Washington Post and Library Journal . His short fiction has appeared...

I’m thrilled to announce that I have signed with @stormliterary.bsky.social and the utterly awesome @jennaschmenna.bsky.social Happy to find such a smart, passionate partner! www.stormliteraryagency.com/brad-barkley...

Advice to my younger writing self We’re said to soften as we age, like bananas.Maybe, but don’t let aging soften you in your writing. Remember that a shift of perspective is not a softening of will.As you grow older, notice that shift...

I wrote as a birthday celebration this blog post www.bradbarkley.com/post/advice-....

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TFW you get an acceptance from @flashfrog.bsky.social !

🎬 Enter the reel life.
One year from today, The Reel Life of Zara Kegg hits shelves — a witty, wistful YA novel about grief, love, and 150 inflatable Godzillas.

Cover reveal later this summer.

📽️ Coming June 16, 2026, from Regal House Publishing. @regalhouse.bsky.social

“The novel you’re working on right now doesn’t know you’ve written other novels before.” —John Irving

When you write the first draft of a novel, all you’re doing is making clay. After that work is done, you now have a big lump of clay sitting in front of you on your desk. Here’s when the real work begins of sculpting it, shaping it, turning it into something. #amwriting

Writers, you can fix a bad page; you can’t fix a blank one.

Three Novels, One Brain I haven't blogged for a while. Here's why.Right now I’m working on three novels at once. Not in a vague, “ideas in the air” kind of way—these are real, active projects, all at different stages. One is...

New blog post today. I hope you give it a look! www.bradbarkley.com/post/three-n...?

Write what you know” doesn’t mean limit yourself. It means pay attention. To how people talk. To what hurts. To the weird stuff you remember. Write what you know emotionally.

If revising your novel isn’t hard, you’re not doing it right.

Most writing advice is just disguised anxiety. Be OK with bad first drafts and and write often. You’ll be fine.

The main thing a writer needs is practice. Not inspiration, not a special pen, not a cabin in the woods. Just hours. It’s unsexy, hard to romanticize, but it’s how the work gets done—one page, one bad sentence at a time.

In writing fiction, don’t forget to look inward. Your weird little obsessions? Priceless. Mine them and dig deep.

In non-genre fiction, ghosts aren’t dead people. They’re regrets, mistakes, missed chances.

In fiction, as in life, too much clarity of detail is often a lie.

Writing is mostly trying to sound like you’re not trying to sound like anything.

“Good fiction’s job is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.”

— David Foster Wallace #SundaySentence

The old adage says, “every story is a love story,“ but really every story is a ghost story. Everyone’s haunted by something.

My thesis advisor at Arkansas, and now we share the same publishing season at @regalhouse.bsky.social So happy about this.

Teaser Trailer for THE REEL LIFE OF ZARA KEGG, coming June, 2026! Cover art reveal later this summer!

“He had no dreams himself but from the careless and inexplicable rebuff they encountered on all sides, he could see that dreams, like the mockingbird, might have to be nourished on their own death.”

-Denis Johnson, Train Dreams #SundaySentence

“In my experience, writing a novel tends to create its own structure, its own demands, its own language, its own ending. So for much of the period in which I’m writing, I’m waiting to understand what’s going to happen next, and how and where it’s going to happen.”

-Don DeLillo

Thank you!

The Hidden Benefits of Being Your Own Developmental Editor: A Writer's Guide Writers can (and often do) spend thousands of dollars on developmental editing. It’s one of the biggest investments you’ll make on the way to publication. But before you fork over that kind of cash, t...

You don’t have to, and probably shouldn’t, spend hundreds of dollars on a developmental editor. Read more! www.bradbarkley.com/post/the-hid...

I can’t read my first one for the same reason.

New novel release date announced! @regalhouse.bsky.social