Timonium Author's First Novel Based on Experience

(Editor's Note: Be sure to scroll to the bottom for an exclusive one-day offer from Amazon.com.)

sat at her computer one night in July 2009 and just started typing. 

 “We had had several deaths in our family—a lot of old relatives—and as I was attending these different funerals, sometimes people struggled a bit with eulogies,” said Barker, a Timonium resident. “I thought, you know, my own kids probably don’t know much about me before I became their mother.”

So she wrote a series of anecdotes about her formative years—stories she remembered, information about her younger self.  

“Keep it until you need it. I hope it helps you,” she remembers saying to herself.

Her intent was to send the few pages to her three adult children so they might better understand the woman who raised them. 

“I sat down at about 9 o’clock in the evening and before I knew it, the next thing I did was look up and the sun was coming up. I had been at my computer for nine or 10 hours just typing,” she said. 

Barker didn’t know at the time what she had in front of her—the template for her first novel, Ednor Scardens. 

She came back to her computer every night for three weeks, churning out page after page. Her memoir had morphed into a work of fiction. 

“It is basically a coming of age story about a girl growing up in the 1960s in a neighborhood called Ednor Gardens, which still exists in Baltimore, that’s down near where the old Memorial Stadium was before they demolished it,” Barker said. “It’s based mostly on true, anecdotal stories from my own life. There is some license taken with one or two of the incidents where they’re exaggerated for the sake of the story.”

She said the "Scar" in Ednor Scardens, came from her own childhood, which Barker . 

The novel, the first in a planned four-part series under the Charm City Chronicles umbrella, follows the life of Kate Fitzgerald from the age of 11 to 14 years old. 

From the product description, pulled from Amazon.com:

“When the boob fairy makes an early visit in sixth grade, eleven-year-old Kate Fitzgerald is unprepared for the repercussions. Her puppy-love relationship with classmate Gabe Kelsey quickly blossoms. But her carefree days in Catholic school darken with the arrival of Father John O'Conner, a predatory priest with a hidden past. ... Kate struggles to navigate the unwanted attention from older boys and men, while trying to sort through the questionable counsel of her too-worldly best friend, Anita. Comical adventures lend relief to Kate’s dark struggles, especially when friends share their refreshingly naive observations about growing up. The tragic death of a classmate brings the group face-to-face with mortality, shattering their facade of invincibility.”

Barker was nudged by a family member to enter the “Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards.” Her first attempt at writing a full-length novel pushed her through the first three rounds of the contest. 

Ednor Scardens fell short of winning, but a call several months later kept the book alive. An editor from Fantasy Island Book Publishers approached Barker about penning the series—first released in eBook, and now a print edition. 

The second book The Body Wars, is due out in spring 2012. 

Barker grew up in Baltimore before marrying a Navy pilot who moved from Puerto Rico to "six or seven" different states. She graduated from then Towson State with a degree in English and a minor in secondary education.

Barker finally moved back to Maryland, settling in Timonium in 2005 after leaving New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. 

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Ednor Scardens is available for free Kindle download for one day only. You can download the book at Amazon.com here. 

You can also download The Stortellers' Anthology, which features Barker's short story "O Canada." You can download the anthology here. 

Barker, who also blogs for Lutherville-Timonium Patch, offered the following:

"If any reader is interested in obtaining a signed copy, they can email me at kateinla51@gmail.com. For the holiday season, I'm offering free shipping to anywhere in the U.S. plus a free Ednor Scardens bookmark."