Denise Barone

This is an essay about a published local auther who was nice enough to help me with a homework assignment.


Dacey Dickerson
Professor Sheperd
English Comp. 1
October 23,2010
Denise Barone

When you think of someone as a writer we might picture someone locking herself away in a room for days on end, until she have that perfect novel or story almost complete. We think about book signings and coffee shops with drinks that have a name as long as yard sticks. When we think of a lawyer, once again we picture an office you think of court rooms and clients calling telling what happened to them. Usually you don’t think of the two together as one, but in Denise Barone you have them both.

I remember the first time I met Denise. It was at the YMCA. I was guarding the pool and she walked in wearing a dark one piece bathing suite. She is very fit. Before she even put her hair up in her swim cap and threw her goggles on, I noticed how she smiled and said hello to almost everyone in the room. I didn’t know it at the time, but Denise is a regular, who swims a mile almost every day.

After getting to know Denise a little better I was shocked to find out that she was a lawyer and a writer. I was so excited when she agreed to do an interview with me. I was nervous as I walked towards her Victorian style home on a corner of what appeared to be a quiet street. As the front door opened I was greeted with a smile. Denise had her blonde straight hair down just above her shoulders and is about five feet and three inches tall. She was wearing a reddish maroon dress. Her lovable dog came to check me out. As she led me into her office I was offered something to drink. The office was nice and inviting. With two walls with windows, allowing plenty of sunlight to come in. A giant clear glass table with two white fluffy chairs that no person would reject sitting in sat on my side of the office. A computer of course and walls lined bookshelves holding mounds of books and photos of friends and family. I couldn’t help but admire the law degrees framed on one side of the room. On one of the shelves I noticed a few copies of one of her books. As time went by and we started the interview, more and more of Denise came out.

Denise’s parents settled and raised their daughter in Bloomington, Indiana, the home of Indiana University. “There is the U.S. School of Music, which is renowned in the country. Not a cosmopolitan as much as it is now. It was a pretty small town when I was growing up.”

Both of Denise’s parents were her biggest influence in her life. Her mother grew up in poverty in North Wales during the Second World War at which point in time, life was under Hitler’s rule. Everyone was poor and living on rations. After her mother came to the United States, she met Denise’s father. They met at a mental ward. Her father was not a patient. No, he was a doctor and psychologist. A psychologist who had special feelings for a nurse working in that same ward, Denise’s mother. Of course they got married and had Denise in Chicago, later moving to Indiana where she grew up. It was only a moment later, when her childhood hometown was being described that she admitted to me how Bloomington was how her first novel House of Wacks came about.

“Bloomington was where the film Breaking Away was filmed. It was a bicycle movie and years ago I had an idea to do a sequel.” We can get a sense of her struggle from that time period as we find out that getting an agent at that time gave her high hopes for that story. Laughter starts to sneak out as she explains how the book was never published and how in between writing that story and no longer having an agent, several books got written. “So, one night I was complaining to my husband. What can I write about? I like the idea of writing a story about the behind the scenes of making a film.”

“And my husband said, that bicycle movies are boring. Why don’t you write about making a horror movie?”

“I was like oh. Ok. That’s a great idea. My husband doesn’t even remember telling me this. I told him it was his idea, and he was like, really?”

So I wrote House of Wacks. Pretty much how it is now, It was a lot raunchier because at that time I thought, young adult.” As a great writer in front of me finishes the story about how her first novel came about, I can see her face light up with the memory. A memory of sending House of Wacks to a many editors and agents. It was unbelievable that no one wanted it. I’ve bought the book. I enjoy it. About the time that she had given up hope, a friend sent a copy of it to another friend. That other friend had told her not to give up and motivated her to send House of Wacks out again. In the end it was a small press called Wild Rose Press, based out of New York State, which took it on. Now we can all read House of Wacks by Denise Gwen. That is one of her pen names by the way. This particular novel is about making the remake of House of Wax, the film. In her version the heroin gets a job on set. When the topic of the movie came up we both laughed and agreed we like the movie. “It was a cut movie.” Then we started to talk about Paris Hilton.

By the way, there is now a second novel called Judge Not that just recently came out. That novel is a romance novel based in Cincinnati. I like both House of Wacks and Judge Not. If you’ve ever read one of Denise’s books, you would think that this is something she wanted to do since she learned how to write. It was actually in her 20’s that she realized this was something she wanted to do.

When asked what her favorite book to write is, it’s neither horror nor romance. Believe it or not it’s an inspirational story called The Well. The Well is not yet published but sounds like something I’m looking forward to reading. It’s about a young girl who finds a skeleton in an abandoned well. It’s a little bit a mystery as to who the body is and what caused it to come there. Most of the characters on these novels are made up in her mind. However, you can find names of Denise’s friends as some of the people in her books. Once one of her books gets published she celebrates by surrounding herself with copies that come to her house and has a moment, just her and her books.

As far as advice for someone wanting to get published, here is what she had to say. “It’s not so much about talent, but you have to really hang in there. You have to never, ever give up. I read something interesting the other night. I picked up this book called Super Freakanomics at Borders and people consider Mozart a genius who was a raw talent, but he took a lot of training for years and years. He got years of training with his father. Even though he was talented, he worked really hard at it. And it’s great to have talent at whatever it is you want to do, but you have to really love what you do, and you have to work at it really hard.”

This woman also has another job, and that is being a lawyer. When asked when she knew she wanted to be a lawyer she replied, “One day at North High School this really neat lady came to see us to talk to us about being a lawyer, and she was African American, and she was a lawyer in Bloomington in the late 70’s. She talked about people had told her the same things about going to law school. That there were too many lawyers and yet she had still managed to find her way. And she worked for legal aid and I was really impressed with that. With her helping poor people and I do a lot of indigent work with volunteer lawyers for the poor and I’m on the pro seniors list.”

Even though she didn’t start her college major as pre-law, once she started on this path she knew she was going to make it. If you’re a future lawyer yourself, here is what Denise has to say. “Hang in there. Law School is three years of hell and torture and if you can just hang in there and keep your head down then you’ll be ok. My dad kept using cow imagery with me cause he was a farmer at heart, and he kept saying KEEP UP WITH THE HERD.”

As the interview ends and I pack up to leave, I feel a little sad. I don’t want to go. Spending just a little bit of time with Denise made me feel right at home. I only hope to accomplish some of what she already has.