I was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in May of 1955, and was raised in the back of a green Ford station wagon. Before I was sixteen, I lived in PA, Idaho, Colorado, New York, Florida, California, and finally (thank God!) back to Colorado. I'm the eldest of seven Henning children, and the others have been well-trained to introduce me as their 'lovely' sister Barb, as opposed to their 'older' sister Barb.

During my first marriage, I co-authored three awesome daughters: currently, Mary is 26, Eva is 24, and Sara is 21. I have two perfect grandsons, Anthony (Mary's son) who is 7, a genius, and my best buddy, and Indiana (Sara's son) who is 6 months, a genius, and the happiest/most gorgeous baby in the Western Hemisphere. I live with my soul-mate and best friend, Mike, and our relationship has spanned eleven years. We have no children, only a neurotic parakeet.

My love of the English language turned me into an avid reader at about age eight.

My love of boys turned me into a mother two weeks after my eighteenth birthday. I supplemented the family income by food waitressing until I was old enough to bartend, and that was my career (in private clubs), until I was in my early thirties and separated from my first husband. At that time, the high school dropout took her GED, passed with flying colors, and went to college for two years. I excelled in the typing/word-processing course, partly because I had recently become interested in writing novel-length fiction. In the interim, I became a medical secretary extraordinaire at the local Children's Hospital, and a writer in my spare time. Currently, I am doing medical transcription from home, which leaves me more free time for the hobby that has turned into a passion. I have four mystery/suspense novels under construction (one of which has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and is currently in the rewrite stage). After having joined AFO, I have also become interested in short stories and just today (03/26/00) submitted my first effort in that realm to a national magazine.

God has already blessed me within this group with several friendships that I feel will be life-long. And in six short weeks, I have learned more from this group about writing than I had in the previous ten years, despite having 'completed' a novel. AFO is a group of people, who, like me, are in love with storytelling. Globally, we come from everywhere. Individually, we come from a desire to create and to share. Communally, we come from a place of inspiration and imagination, and we revel in the differences of style and voice. And personally, I have found a group of people that I have been looking for my entire life.