Pool Fishing Stories

Pool Fishing Stories - Paperback

$23.76
Sale price  $23.76 Regular price 
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Pool Fishing Stories

Pool Fishing Stories - Paperback

by Barbara DeMarco Barrett
$23.76
Sale price  $23.76 Regular price 

Book Overview

by Barbara DeMarco Barrett (Author)

In Pool Fishing, Barbara DeMarco-Barrett brings us into a world with characters who live on the fringes of society-physically, psychologically, or financially. The setting is either the wrong side of town in coastal California or the California desert where characters have the freedom to act out dark schemes they wouldn't imagine, or even dare, in the dense confines of the city.

The stories are woman-centered, location-driven, and connected by place-a converted motel in Orange County, California, and the desert in and around Palm Springs, two hours away. Bodies of water figure in most of these pieces while quirky, sexy, and dark characters are held captive by their own desires, until something shifts and they break free, finding or creating opportunities where none seemed to exist, and making choices, though not necessarily the best ones.

In "The Water Holds You Still," Greta drives from Orange County to Palm Springs to help her mother and meets a pool cleaner who has a motive and a weapon-the pool itself. In "Blue Martini," Pepper escapes a controlling boyfriend only to confront him at the end in the bar where she works. And in "51 Winfield," a young widow obsessed with her consignment store's wares is visited by her dead husband who talks to her via a bowler's shirt. Dark, vivid, and unsettling, Pool Fishing is a crowning achievement.

"Stories that sizzle with dark humor, wisdom, and seduction. An irresistible read."

- Candi Sary, author of Magdalena

"In prose that crackles, DeMarco-Barrett spins the most deliciously noir stories spanning the deadly undertow of Palm Springs pools to animal rescue missions turned eco-terrorism. I loved it!

- Halley Sutton, author of Hurricane Blonde

Wryly perceptive depictions of characters and their unyielding situations, this collection of short stories by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett vibrate with life, loss and intensity. Pool Fishing is first rate.

- Gary Phillips, author of Ash Dark as Night

Number of Pages: 254
Dimensions: 0.63 x 8.5 x 5.5 IN
Publication Date: September 16, 2025
ISBN9781964880051
Author Barbara DeMarco Barrett
PublisherKelp Books
GenreLiterature
FormatPaperback
PublishedSeptember 2025
LanguageENG- English
Pages254
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

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About Barbara DeMarco Barrett

Barbara DeMarco-Barrett's published works include Pen on Fire: A Busy Woman's Guide to Igniting the Writer Within (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004; 11th printing), a Los Angeles Times bestseller and winner of the 2005 American Society of Journalists and Authors book award. Her short story, "Crazy for You," published in Orange County Noir (Akashic, 2010), was chosen for USA Noir: Best of the Akashic Noir Series (Akashic, 2013). Her short fiction has been published in the Oyez Review, The Big Click, and Radius. Essays and articles have seen print in anthologies as well as The Authors Guild Bulletin, The Writer, Los Angeles Review of Books, Poets & Writers, Writer's Digest, Toronto Sun, San Jose Mercury News, Orange Coast Magazine, and the Los Angeles Times. She's a member of the Authors Guild, PEN, American Society of Journalists and Authors, and Sisters in Crime Orange County Chapter, where she's incoming president for 2018. She hosts "Writers on Writing," a public radio show on KUCI-FM (broadcasting out of UC-Irvine) and in 2009 founded the Pen on Fire Speaker Series in Corona del Mar, a bi-monthly salon featuring noted authors, editors, and literary agents. In 2011, she was named #1 Literary Magnet by Orange Coast Magazine, a glossy metropolitan regional serving Orange County, California. . DeMarco-Barrett has taught creative writing for 20-plus years. For twelve of those years she taught at UC-Irvine where she received a Distinguished Instructor award. Since 2005, she has taught at Gotham Writer's Workshop. She is a former board member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) and served as the Southern California Chapter president for five years. From 2000 to 2012, she served as editor of The ASJA Monthly, the official publication for ASJA. Before that, she was travel editor for The Local Concierge, a Southern California travel magazine. For three years she wrote the "Women's Business" column for OC Metro, a business magazine distributed in Orange County, California. She lives in coastal Orange County one hour south of Los Angeles with her jazz and blues musician husband and son, and two cats.

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