The Power of Stories with Bree Barton

THE POWER OF STORIES

Interview by Gillian St. Clair Written by Kelsey Herston

Have you ever wished you could read a book that was essentially a combination of Graceling by Kristin Cashore, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen? Or maybe you’ve never imagined a book that amazing could be real. Whatever the case, I have some great news. This book does exist, and was written by author Bree Barton.

Barton’s book Heart of Thorns will debut on July 31, 2018 from Katherine Tegen/ HarperCollins. The book follows Mia Rose, a seventeen-year-old girl who has chosen to spend her life hunting women like the ones who killed her mother. These women aren’t like most humans; they are demons with dark magic who are able to kill without leaving a single scratch. But things change when Mia discovers she, too, has this forbidden magic. Barton’s debut will be the first book in what Harper is calling “a fierce feminist fantasy” trilogy—something Bree is very happy with.

“I’m just baffled by people’s fear of the word ‘feminism,’” she says. “I’ve had to educate a couple of my family members who say, ‘Oh, I believe in women’s rights, but I wouldn’t call myself a feminist.’ To which I say, ‘That’s what being a feminist means!’”

When hearing Barton discuss the book, this comes as no surprise. In it, the female body has evolved in response to all the ways women are treated poorly. “The magic in the world of HoT comes from systematic abuses,” Barton says. “Women’s bodies have evolved to create a more equitable balance of power.”

Along with being an author, Barton is also a ghostwriter and a dance teacher. Last year she created a free dance/writing class for teen girls called Rock ‘n’ Write. “It’s so fun,” she says. “It was a dream I’ve wanted to realize for a long time: merging my two favorite things.”

Besides the fact that writing and dancing bring her joy, she has also found they help with her depression, something she has dealt with since her first major depressive episode at the age of eleven. And she is not alone. Barton says the class attracts girls who are creative and thoughtful, many of whom struggle with anxiety and other mental health challenges.

Every class lasts six weeks and involves a lot of writing prompts and a lot of dancing. “It’s such a funny hybrid,” Barton says, “but it’s been great to build this little community of girls and women.”

Building a community through stories is something that Barton strongly believes in. “Stories are such a great way to connect with other people and to deepen our own empathy,” she says, which is why she has chosen to use her author platform to talk about what is important to her. This includes breaking the stigma around mental health.

Barton points out that many creative people deal with some form of mental illness, and she’s had many people reach out to her and thank her for reminding them they are not alone. “We need to be talking about mental illness,” she says. “People are hungry for it.”

Writing is not her only method of telling stories. During her teens and twenties, Barton was an actor. She still makes videos on YouTube, which gives her a chance to showcase what she calls her “bonedeep silliness.” Barton recognizes the importance of nurturing creativity in a variety of ways. She tries to take a craft class

every year: photography, collaging, fused glass and taxidermy, to name a few. She doesn’t always do well in these classes— her taxidermied bird has more holes than a swatch of cheesecloth—but she always has fun.

For years she felt stymied by her own chosen profession: all she did was write and edit, both for her day job and her own creative pursuits. After a while, she thought, “I miss taking dancing classes.” When she started dancing again, movement came back into her life. “Then I went through a particularly bad bout of writer’s block and thought, I need to be creative in ways that aren’t solely about words.” That’s when she started seeking out craft classes.

Barton believes that oftentimes, we silo ourselves. Unfortunately, school tends to reinforce this.

“Do we really expect seventeen-yearolds to know what they’re doing for the rest of their lives?” Barton says. “I still don’t entirely know what I’m doing with mine!” This is something that has been on her mind recently since Cat—Barton’s eighteen-year-old sister and the reason she writes YA—starts college in August. “I think we put such immense pressure on young men and women at this age. Even the ones who think they know exactly what they want to do with their life might realize years later that they missed out on exploring all the possibilities. I was absolutely sure at eighteen that I wanted to be an actor, and my life has taken so many turns since then.”

Barton is happy her sister is not rushing into anything just yet. Instead, Cat will be exploring a variety of classes to figure out what speaks to her soul and what doesn’t, rather than allowing her school to force her into a cookie-cutter shape.

Figuring out what you love to do and what you are good at—and finding the places those two things overlap—can take some time and exploring. Finding a way to use what you love as a means to contribute to the world can seem like an even more daunting task, especially if you are shy or have anxiety, depression, or another form of mental illness. For those who relate, Barton recommends you figure out what stokes the fire inside you. Once you figure that out, you can find ways to create it yourself. She says this because she knows how much her younger self would have benefited from something like Rock ‘n’ Write.

“I was so unhappy and scared at fourteen,” she says. “People weren’t talking about mental illness when I was in high school. So if I’d had a kooky adult woman be like, ‘We’re going to get together once a week to dance and write’—I mean, in all fairness, I probably would have raised a skeptical eyebrow. But then I’d have gone and stumbled upon this amazing community of girls and women. It might have changed my life.”

Barton is quick to clarify that it’s not like a dance/writing class would have been some kind of magical elixir. “I don’t believe in cures and elixirs,” Barton says, “which I tell my girls, too. You certainly

can’t think your way out of depression by ‘living in abundance’ or eating nightshades. I also tell them that there is nothing wrong with you if you have mental illness. For me it’s been about finding ways to live with depression, to survive and thrive and craft a life that makes me happy. Medication has helped. Therapy has helped. Dancing has definitely helped. And I think, if I’d found these things at fourteen instead of twenty-eight, I would have spent less time depressed and alone, struggling to get out of bed.”

That is why she believes it is important to discover what it is you need before you can provide that for others. “If you find the need, if there’s something you’re aching for, maybe that’s your clue,” Barton says. “The thing you want more of might be the exact need you were made to fill.”

Of course that doesn’t mean doing the thing you were made to do will be easy. Barton says there have been many moments on the road to publication where she thought she had “arrived,” only to feel like she was then catapulted right back to the beginning. Which is something that, unfortunately, doesn’t get easier.

“I am awful with rejection,” Barton says, “and it’s not like I’ve removed rejection from my life. In some ways, every tier is just more rejection that hurts even worse.”

Writing, and in particular, publishing, can be a long, arduous process. She describes it as graduating from one tier of waiting to another tier of waiting. She says, “Every

single time I think, ‘Yes! I’ve arrived!’ Only to realize, ‘Oh wait, I have to wait another six months to get rejected in exciting new ways.’”

Barton says that, as time goes on, “it feels like you get higher highs and lower lows. It’s such a rough scenario to be thrown into when you already struggle with depression—or any kind of mental illness, really. It’s basically like: you’re going to feel awesome . . . and then you’re going to feel like shit. Lather, rinse, repeat.”

All of that being said, Barton does believe it’s worth it. “I’ve wanted to have a book on the shelf with my name on it since I was eight years old. Despite all the highs and lows, I feel wildly lucky to be here—and incredibly grateful.”

She recently enjoyed a terrific high when Heart of Thorns was chosen for a popular YA book subscription box in the UK. Barton signed five thousand tip-ins, which will be bound into the finished copy, a special limited edition with sprayed pages. Signing her name five thousand times took her about twelve hours. “That might not sound like fun,” she says, “but honestly, doing those tip-ins was one of the best parts of this whole process. I loved it. And my signature was so good by the end!”

Barton is clearly passionate about writing. She says it helps her process what is going on in the world. “I sure hope it helps other people, too,” she says,” because I’m a horrible activist. I almost had a panic attack at the women’s march. I’m such an introvert,

Even though writers have a talent for putting thoughts into words, sometimes they find themselves unable to accurately express what they’re going through, especially when they’re working with mental illness. This is something Barton discussed in one of her monthly newsletters, which you can subscribe to here. In it she wrote about how depression can affect her ability to write. Despite having gone to a magical writing workshop filled with amazing women who shared great stories and ideas with one another, none of that mattered when she came home. Why? Because depression is not always logical.

“My depression is quiet on social media; it knows it won’t be welcome there,” she wrote. “So it takes up residence in my mind. It says: Stay in bed. You do not have what it takes to face this day.” But staying in bed only brings guilt for doing nothing.

On this particular night Barton wrote about, she did get out of bed. She launched the next session of Rock ‘n’ Write, where she and ten young women did the two things she said “have saved me more times than I can count. They continue to save me, even today.”

Stories can be powerful and genuinely impact the lives of those who read them. This is something Barton fiercely believes. In another newsletter, she wrote about having a folder on her computer with the title

“Stories Save.” It included writing-related tidbits she had saved over the years: works in progress, story ideas, even story rejections. “At my lowest lows this month, on the days I was able to find my way back to the words, a light switched on in a dark room.”

Stories are powerful. “They enlighten, enrage, baffle, heal, and goad us on to being better artists, better listeners, better humans. That’s the story I want to believe in,” Barton wrote. “The story of us.”

If you would like to read one of Barton’s stories, check out her novel Heart of Thorns, which is already receiving great reviews. It will debut on July 31, but you can preorder it on Amazon right now. You can also visit her website at breebarton.com, or come say hi at one of the fourteen stops on her U.S. book tour.