Cuero author says writing saved her life
CUERO - She was 68 before she wrote her first novel.
Little did she know, it would end up saving her life.
Lois Barrett of Cuero was suffering from multiple health
problems back in 2003. In danger of becoming what she
called a dying sofa spud, she suddenly remembered the
manuscriptshe had started in 1953 when she was 18 that
was still lying in a box in her closet.
"I never got another chance to touch it, what with raising kids
and working as a reporter. So I decided to dust it off and for
the next 30 days and most nights, I wrote" Barrett, 73, said.
"Soon I had a rough draft of a novel." As a first-time novelist,
Barrett had trouble getting agents and publishers to even look
at the book.
Not to be deterred, she started her own publishing company
called Brick Hill Publishing. Five years and four published
novels later, Barrett has found a new lease on life.
"I remember thinking to myself, I'm 69-years-old and
I can't find anyone to publish this book. I probably won't live
to see it published. So I'll just do it myself," she said. "And I did."
Three of her books, including her latest, "Gulf Coast Love Affair,"
are historical fiction that follows the lives of the Smith family.
Barrett takes real life natural disasters, such as the 19th-century
earthquakes that rocked Illinois and the hurricanes that ravaged
Indianola, and puts her characters into the thick of it, she said.
The other two titles in the series are "When the Earthquake Spoke"
and "Preacher's Son and Henry Brown," which is about the War of 1812.
She also wrote a book that is not in the series called "There Oughta Be a Law."
A huge history buff, Barrett does her homework for each book,
researching everything from the clothing people wore back then
to the real life accounts of the natural disasters.
"I love research, always have. That's why I became a reporter
in the first place," she said.
She was only 18 when she started her "great American novel,"
but for Barrett, it's more than finally accomplishing her adolescent dream.
Despondent from her health problems and recovering from three surgeries
in nine months, it was writing that gave her a reason to get up in the morning.
"I'm more apt to write books than clean house," she said.
"I thought I wasgoing to stop after the first one, but I already
have the idea
for a fifth book in my head."