Margaret Barkley lives in Sebastopol, California with her husband and has a vibrant extended family of adult children and grandkids. She is from Wyoming and has roots there that go back several generations. Its open spaces and beauty imprinted a love of nature and adventure, and she continues to explore wildness wherever she is.
Margaret has been a locally recognized poet for many years, sharing her work at readings and events, and is delighted to be publishing her first book. She has led a writing group since 1999 and is a member of a weekly poetry critique group with poet icon Fran Claggett-Holland. Her poetry has been published in the Redwood Writers poetry anthologies Beyond Distance, And Yet, and Crow, in which she was an Award of Merit poet. Her work has been performed live by Off The Page Readers Theater.
Margaret is also an educator. She is inspired by the courage of people who are open to learning and making a difference in our world. When she was a single mother of three, Margaret went back to college and earned a master’s degree in Psychology. She then trained to facilitate the MBA Interpersonal Dynamics course at Stanford Graduate School of Business. She has taught for over twenty years, most recently in the Organization Development Masters Program at Sonoma State University. Her latest love is leading women’s retreats in the Grand Tetons.
Margaret is relentlessly curious, noticing the details of life—the tiniest shift of expression, surprise connections, and small mysteries—and is compelled to write her observations, allowing her reader to share the beauty, sorrow, and humor of this world through her poetry.
For her, writing is an opportunity to explore the workings of a complex and gorgeous world. Margaret arranges ideas, ingredients, words, and emotions into the offerings of her heart: a jar of jam, a basket of tomatoes, a carefully crafted poem.