My wife is award-winning author Micki Bare. Yes, that Micki Bare. The one who wrote Relative Expressions, the Thurston T. Turtle trilogy, a weekly column in our local paper (and syndicated in the Arkansas News Bureau) for 18 years and her latest, the Zahra of the Uwharries series, of which, book two is coming out this week (May 18th, 2023). As I write this, she’s also just written a ten minute play for Asheboro’s Mental Health Awareness Week events. Her play and four others were performed at North Ridge Church to much fanfare. She can now add playwrite to her list of authorial accomplishments.
In our almost 22 years of marriage, I’ve learned a lot from my brilliant wife, not just in terms of emotional maturity, empathy, kindness, support, enduring love (and forgiveness) and that she has a beautiful and loving personality, but from her work as a hard-working writer. In fact, if I had one person who inspires me to keep on tapping away at the keyboard, it’s Micki. Sure, like the rest of us, there are other writers I admire, too. I don’t know many of them (Stephen King, if you’re reading this, we’re both big fans and would love to meet you someday) personally the way I know Micki.
But Dave, you say, of course you love Micki’s work! You’re married to her. You’re biased! Well, it’s true, I am proud of her and I do tend to like what she writes, but that’s got less to do with bias and more to do with true admiration. Unlike in ages past, one cannot simply write a book and have it published. The gauntlet that an aspiring author has to run through isn’t just daunting. It’s soul crushing and if you let it, it will squish and wring any aspiration for writing right out of you.
I’m an amateur writer and other than this blog and some forays into the world of newspaper columns, I’m not really driven to get any of my scribbles published. Micki’s dream, since she was a small person, has been to become a writer. She has the dream and the drive to catch it. This dream has led her a merry chase, too. She’s gone from self-published to published by a real book company; from working through women’s fiction genres to a full-fledged middle grades author (ages 8-12ish). It brought her to Raleigh last year where her first book in the Zahra series won her the 2022 AAU Young People’s Literature Award.
To stand by her side as she faces the many trials of being a writer and see her cowed by absurd literary agents who seem to have the most nebulous rules for “what’s popular” and watch her pick herself back up and try again and again is not only heartening, but a master class in bravery. She’s gotten so inured to rejection letters that she merely shrugs and tries again. She has been seated next to other writers whose books were flying from the signing tables, while hers didn’t move and she never lost faith. Her courage in this vein was rewarded recently when she was the popular author at a book event. Far from letting that go to her head, though, she was gracious to the other author there and made a new friend as a result. Later that day when she handed her book to a very popular YA author (and acquaintance) for a signature and a photo, I foresaw that one day very soon it would be her at a table while hundreds of people queued to see and speak with Micki.
Her guts, her marketing genius, her skill with social media didn’t just come to her. They were hard won. She’s had many moments of doubt and discouragement over the years; times when she wondered tearfully why the world of writing and publishing is so difficult. And yet, not long after, she’d be back at it again, with a new gameplan, a new glint of determination in her eyes as her fingers flew across her keyboard.
Over the years Micki has worked at writing, she’s also dealt with all the other things that life throws at us. She raised three wonderful boys, worked in professional capacities in the non-profit, journalistic and public school teacher realms and continues to be the caretaker for her aging mother who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. Micki loves to cook, garden, hike, spend time with her family and is an avid reader.
Like many driven people, Micki often finds herself quite busy. While working on the redline edits for her latest book in her five book series, she was also finishing up the second semester for her masters degree in education and grading papers for her ornery sixth graders. She doesn’t do things by halves. If you want to be a writer, you have to be driven to follow your dream.
This week, as we celebrate Mother’s Day and the release of her second book, Blind Fairy (available on May 18th) and the birthday of the eldest son, it comes home to me that, as she has managed to balance between motherhood and wifehood and navigate the trials and challenges of professional and home life, she’s also managed to be incredibly adept at facing adversity and winning success as a writer. Her accomplishments have been the result of dedication and determination, discipline and drive. She is the kindest, most loving person I know, but when it comes to achieving her dreams, my darling wife is like chilled steel.
It’s not just bias on my part. I love her books, but I’m truly amazed by how she keeps fighting for her dream!
Click the links throughout this blog essay to find out more about Micki’s history as a writer and buy her books, especially Blind Fairy!
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