 Photo by J. Tomás López Writer, Editor, Teacher
To see some of the independent bookstores where readers have found or ordered Magpies, check out the Publications Page.
If you would like a signed copy, they are available from Miami's great independent bookseller Books & Books, 305-442-4408. Books
What Editors Want: A Must-Read for Writers Submitting to Literary Magazines, is out from Rain Chain Press. It covers the steps in the submission process and how to handle them...and stay as sane as a writer can.
Use this link to order from the publisher and save on shipping. Discounts available for those ordering multiple copies. 
MagpiesMy third short story collection, MAGPIES, published by Carnegie Mellon University Press, received the Gold Medal for General Fiction in the Florida Book Awards.
Selected by the Center for Literature and Writing at Miami Dade College for their Current Voices In Literature Program, 2013-14. Publishers Weekly says of Magpies: "Barrett portrays adult lives with minimal flourishes and a powerful command of setting. Florida is electric with the tension of "all that can happen"—hurricanes, sinkholes, and a boom-and-bust history. It becomes as eerie as it is richly imagined, whether stories take place in an Art Deco building or a gas station. One of the year's finer university press offerings..." In The Rumpus, Joseph Olshan writes: "Sentence for sentence, Barrett is a superb writer. Her work brims with original ideas, questions and philosophical musings, the product of a probing intelligence and a highly literate sensibility. But what separates her from many contemporary short fiction writers is her consummate story-telling ability."
Around the web
and around town
You can hear me reading my poem "Polylingual" at the start of this short slideshow about the WLRN and O Miami Poetry Festival "That's So Miami" project. Just follow this link and scroll down. 
I took part in a discussion of "Submitting Etiquette" for The Review Review.
Geoffrey Philp interviewed me for his blog about the writing life and my class in Literary Journalism. Laura Valeri interviewed me for Bookslut. Dena Santoro wrote a wonderful appreciation of the (bad) girls in my short stories, at Like Fire. "Angles of Belonging," my guest blog about having grown up in NJ, being a "Florida writer," and the many ways characters can connect to place, is at Lisa Romeo Writes. At The Writerly Life, Gerry Wilson and I discussed thinking about a story's edges and the ever-challenging issue of trying to get too many things done. On Casey Pycior's blog, The Story is the Cure, we discussed, among other things, my story "Links" and unanticipated consequences of writing about the dot com world. Laura Richardson interviewed me about Magpies, plot, editing, and much more for Sliver of Stone Magazine. Angela Kelsey did a four-part (they're short!) interview with me on her blog. Topics covered include how suspense is created in literary stories, and tips for writers. WLRN Topical Currents Interview
You can hear my conversation with Ariel Gonzalez on WLRN's Topical Currents by going to the About Lynne page or download the full show's MP3 here.
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The latest...
2019 Upcoming Events
Fairhope Pier, photo by Jeanie Thompson
I'll be among those participating in the annual conference of the Gulf Coast Association of Creative Writing Teachers in Fairhope, AL, on March 22 and 23. Registration is open for this very affordable and friendly conference for those who teach or study creative writing, or are hoping to do so in the future. I'll be on an Editors panel, another panel about how to prepare for reading your work aloud, and (presumably prepared), doing a reading. On April 13th, I will be teaching an intensive class on the revision process for fiction and narrative nonfiction at the one-day Writers Craft Conference of the Florida Keys, to be held in Marathon, FL. Among my fellow presenters are Chantel Acevedo and John Dufresne. This is a very affordable one-day conference. Registration is open. Learn more here.
Just Confirmed: I will be teaching at Florida Gulf Coast University's Sanibel Island Writers Conference, Nov. 7-10 2019. SIWC has been named by The Writers Magazine's reader as one of the United States' top writers conference (the only on in Florida to get this ranking). Stay tuned for more information.
New work: short stories, nonfiction, & more
Some Recent Events
Noir at the Bar readers at Miami Book Fair International. L to R: Lynne Barrett, Lauren Doyle Owens, Alex Segura, Mike Creeden, Jon McGoran , Joe Clifford, and Hector Duarte, Jr. Photo by Melissa Messulam
I was part of Miami Book Fair's Noir at the Bar reading on November 15th. Our emcee Alex Segura, Joe Clifford, Mike Creeden, Hector Duarte Jr., Jon McGoran, and Lauren Doyle Owens and I served up slices of crime fictionand Gold Dust Lounge provided live noir lounge music, at MBFI's The Porch at Miami-Dade College's Wolfson Campus in Downtown Miami. I also ran The Florida Book Review's annual Book Fair blog, which takes you to many of the readings and panels as well as giving a sense of the amazing street fair. Check it out here. I presented at Grub Street's Muse and the Marketplace Conference 2018, April 6-8 at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel. The Muse was recently listed as #1 among the Top Ten Writing Conferences in North America by The Writer magazine. I taught workshops on "Productive Revision" and the art of handling "Secrets and Lies" to create mystery and suspense in fiction.
Photo by Sara DiVello from Muse & the Marketplace. Photos at literary events often include the backs of heads. LB
To see other recent events and to get more details about upcoming book group meetings, workshops, and conferences, please go to the Events page.
Women of Florida Fiction:
More work in journals and anthologies
"Morning Glories" is in Fifteen Views of Miami, a collection of lightly linked stories edited by Jaquira Diaz and published by Burrow Press. Connie Ogle discusses the collection and interviews the editor and some of the contributors in a great piece in the Miami Herald. And Tina Egnoski reviews it for the Florida Book Review. Miami New Times has named Fifteen Views of Miami to its list of "The Seven Best Books About Miami."
"The Tree Man" was published in Wraparound South. Read it here. A brief excerpt from the story was used as the text for a broadsheet Pip Brandt and I did for the Sweat Broadsheet project. You can see the broadsheet on the Stories, Essays, Poems, page The Editors of Wraparound South nominated "The Tree Man" for Sundress Publications' Best of the Net anthology, the Million Writers Prize, and for a Pushcart Prize.
Teaching
I teach in the Creative Writing program in FIU's English Dept, and often speak at writers' conferences around the country. I'm immensely proud of my students, and you can read about some of their many achievements on my Teaching Page. I was honored to be chosen as a Florida International University Top Scholar in 2012, and to be featured in a full-page ad for the university in the Miami Herald. In 2011 I received an FIU Award for Excellence in Graduate Mentorship, and I previously received one for Excellence in Research. With FIU President Mark Rosenberg at the 2012 Top Scholars Reception, April 2012. |
Florida Flash:
As editor of Tigertail, A South Florida Annual: Florida Flash, I looked for very short prose works to explore the edges and overlaps between lyrical and narrative approaches. Fifty-four authors with connections to Florida contributed prose poetry, flash fiction, and flash nonfiction of no more than 305 words—a number representing the original South Florida area code.
More about the collection, and the radio contest it inspired, on the Anthologies page.
More about the collection, and the radio contest it inspired, on the Anthologies page.