Barbara Presnell

In OTHERWISE, I'M FINE, Barbara Presnell tells a heart-wrenching personal story of loss, healing, and forgiveness. As she joins with her brother and sister in a search across 1944-1945 Europe for their father who died too young, they confront deep chasms of separation and silence to find the heart of the man they lost and the love of a mother who did her best to keep them together.

Stories are Presnell’s way into the lives of ordinary people who work hard and find strength in community and family. PIECE WORK, which won Cleveland State University Poetry Center’s First Book Prize, follows Velma, Pauline, Rodney, Charlie, and others who work behind the machines of a textile mill. “Pauline Learns To Sew” was selected by Our State magazine as one of ten poems every North Carolinian should read.

Similarly, BLUE STAR tells of a single family’s experiences at war and on the home front, from the Civil War to the present.

Barbara Presnell studied writing and literature at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and the University of Kentucky. Her columns, distributed by the New York Times News Service, have appeared in newspapers across the country. She lives in Lexington, North Carolina, with her husband, Bill Keesler, and rescue dog, Colby. Her adult son and his family, including two hilarious grandsons, live in Connecticut, but their hearts reside in the South.