Barbara Frances

Author

Barbara Frances has plenty of stories and a life spent acquiring them. Growing up Catholic on a small Texas farm, her childhood ambition was to become a nun. At age fourteen she entered a convent boarding school as an aspirant, the first of several steps before taking vows. The Sisters were disappointed, however, when she passed up the habit for the University of North Texas, where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English and Theatre Arts. Her professors were similarly disappointed when she passed up a postgraduate degree to become a (stewardess) flight attendant, Barbara, however, never looked back. “ Barbara eventually returned to Texas and settled down. Marriage, children, school teaching and divorce distracted her from storytelling, but one summer she and a friend coauthored a screenplay. The next summer Barbara wrote a screenplay on her own. Others followed, including Two Women, a finalist in the 1990 Austin Screenwriters Festival. Three more were optioned: Silent Crossing, The Anniversary and Sojourner Truth but it was not to be One day a friend’s child found and read Lottie’s Adventure, her script for a children’s movie and urged her to turn it into a book. Then she wrote Like I Used to Dance, based on childhood memories and stories.” Shadow’s Way is a Southern Gothic tale about a woman caught in the struggle to keep her beloved plantation home from a vengeful archbishop. She and her husband Bill live in Austin, Texas. She can be reached at barb@barbarafrances.com .