About Barry

Barry Wightman by Chris Kirzeder

Born in St. Louis, raised in Chicago and New England, Barry says he should’ve been an English major. He spent thirty years in the high tech industry, traveling the world, spending time in Silicon Valley, with countless trips to Asia, Australia, and much of the rest of the world. After all that, he earned an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2010.

Barry’s first novel, Pepperland, received a starred review on Booklist, and was a winner of the Silver IPPY from the Independent Publishers Association, 2014. Barry is past Fiction Editor (2011 – 2016) for Hunger Mountain, a literary journal of the arts based in Montpelier, Vermont. He is President of the Wisconsin Writers Association, and is past Program Chair for the University of Wisconsin (Waukesha) Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books. He is also a talented voiceover professional and a Wisconsin Broadcasters Association award-winning essayist, whose work has been heard on WUWM Milwaukee Public Radio.

He’s also a long-time reviewer for the Washington Independent Review of Books. His music and book reviews have also appeared in various publications in Chicago, Milwaukee and Washington D.C.