Rebecca Rego Barry is a bibliophile, a book historian, library preservationist, archivist, magazine editor, and the author of hundreds of articles, essays, book reviews, and two books. Rebecca lives in Chichester, a hamlet of Shandaken, with her husband Brett Barry, the host of the popular Catskills’ podcast “Kaatscast.” The couple recently became part owners of Catskills book publisher, the Purple Mountain Press. In our discussion, Rebecca observed “I literally think of nothing else but books all the time.”  

What inspired you to write your first book? 

I was the editor of the Fine Books and Collections magazine when a British publisher reached out to see if I wanted to write a book about rare book finds. Publishers don’t usually reach out like that with actual contracts and advances. So it was really just luck that I got to write my first book, “Rare Books Uncovered.” 

What’s the back story to your most recent book? 

It was again rare books and collecting that led me to writing my most recent book, “The Vanishing of Carolyn Wells: Investigations into a Forgotten Mystery Author.”

A book plate with the name “Carolyn Wells” was in an old edition of “Walden” that my husband bought for me at an antiquarian book fair. I did some digging and learned that Wells had been a famous mystery author and humor writer. She had written for every major and minor magazine from the 1890s through the 1940s, was the first editor of the Best American Mystery Story series, a crossword puzzle master, and a young adult novelist. Her output is around 180 books. I thought, ‘wow,’ this is an enormous story and ‘why do I not know her name?’ My book is basically a detective search and a biography of this woman who, when she dies, is completely forgotten, just falls off the literary map. 

What’s the biggest hurdle you’ve faced in your writing? 

Like for most people, time is the biggest hurdle. For many writers, it’s not your primary source of income. So you have a day job. Maybe you’re also a parent. So trying to fit the writing in around those things is a hurdle. 

For my second book, I also had to go through the usual route that writers take, which is to write a long proposal, probably 50 to 75 pages. You do so much of the research out of pocket. And then try to get an agent, try to get a publisher. And each of those steps takes a long time and is discouraging.

The mechanisms of publishing, you send out your query and your proposal and you’ll hear nothing. You know, that’s hard. You kind of just want somebody to reply, “no”, rather than silence.

What has been your book writing process?

I definitely am the kind of writer that needs to make a good outline. Maybe it’s not 100 percent of the way there, but it’s probably 75 or 80 percent of the way there. 

And I also really need good blocks of time. Whenever I read interviews with authors and they’re like, I wrote 30 minutes on the bus and 30 minutes at a soccer game, I think, ‘how does your brain do that?’ I need to sit down and know I’ve got two, three hours where I can just sink into the material. I can’t work if I know that I’m gonna have to take a break of 30 minutes or I’m gonna have to run out somewhere else.

I like my sentences and paragraphs to be almost there, although I’m not going to hold up on one word necessarily. I know writers who will say, ‘just get it down on paper and then you can get back to it later.’ No. If I’m in the mode and I’m thinking about it, I want sentence by sentence to pretty much be there. Yes, maybe I’ll tinker with it later. But that’s just going to be a good segue or a couple of commas or maybe I’m gonna change a word. But the sentences for the most part have to go down pretty much the way you’re gonna see them.

What has been your writing routine?

My first book, I was working at the magazine at the time and I had young children. So what I would do is magazine work, 8:00 to 1:00, quick lunch, and then a block of writing, 1:30 to 3:30 or 4:00, before the kids get home.

The novel, similarly, I would go out to this little tea house that was between my property and my neighbors, which happened to be my in-laws. And that was my block of time. But, because currently I can’t find a block of time, it’s almost like a hang up. I can’t get to the next project because I can’t find two or three hours every day and know that I can rely on that.

Have there been particular authors or books that have influenced you? 

I always go back to Anne Lamott’s “Bird by Bird.” Whenever my girls would come to me and say, “I’ve got this long paper I have to write,” I would just say, “bird by bird.” And that always sticks with me. Get the first paragraph down. Take a break.

For me, that first paragraph, when I was writing articles, if I could just get the lede, I’d be like, ‘okay, good, now I can go have lunch.’

How has your broad literary experience influenced your work? 

Because I worked in an archive, I know how important they are. And that really powered my second book. One of the main reasons Carolyn Wells was completely forgotten about is because there’s no central archive of her stuff. When she died, most of her work was sold off in auctions. So everything went in various directions. All of her letters and manuscripts, all the stuff that make up a writer’s life, which for many writers goes to a university or an institution somewhere and then scholars can use that, but that didn’t exist for Carolyn. 

Have you written any fiction? 

No. I definitely have the proverbial manuscript which I wrote in 2018, 2019.

I made the mistake of pitching to agents in 2020 when no one cared about that and getting discouraged by all of that and just putting it in a drawer and thinking maybe I’ll go back there one day.

Do you have writing projects underway?

The next one I want to work on, which I won’t say too much about, is about a woman who has a literary streak, she has a medical streak, she has a Catskills streak. So I think I’m never gonna get away from that love of books, love of literature. I think any book I write is probably going to have some element of that.

Does living in the Catskills influence your writing? 

We’ve been here 21 years. I like to joke with my husband that it took me nine years to get used to it. I love it here. But of course, big change from suburban New Jersey. My next project will have more of the Catskills in it than anything else I’ve done.

What are you reading now? 

Generally, I’m reading two books at a time, sometimes three. Usually, I read non-fiction in audiobook version. And they’re usually history, memoir, biography, those are kind of my go-to genres. Right now I’m listening to Patti Smith’s new memoir called “Bread of Angels.” I love Patti Smith as an author, as a musician. 

And in fiction right now, I’m reading a book called “My Friends,” by Fredrik Backman.

I’m reading it with my book club—eight moms from Shandaken, Woodstock, Mt. Tremper—we’ve been meeting for six, seven years. And we’ve read Backman before.

Do you have other book recommendations? 

I literally think of nothing else but books all the time. And it’s usually whatever’s freshest on my mind. Recently I listened to a book called “Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies.” It addressed the whole authorship question. And I’d never really thought about that question before, kind of took it for granted that Shakespeare was Shakespeare. But it’s eye-opening and incredibly researched. Really amazing.

For the last several years, my number one recommendation has been “Possession: A Romance,” by A.S. Byatt. It’s about Victorian poets who are in love and a lost manuscript.

What is Purple Mountain Press?

Purple Mountain Press has been around since the ‘70s, and used to have a shop in Fleischmann’s. It publishes local history, Catskills, Adirondacks, Lake Champlain-area, natural history, Revolutionary War history.

I was an English major in college and thought I was gonna go into publishing in some form. And my first college job was at Simon & Schuster. But we’d come up here for weekends in the 1990s, and I saw a storefront, “Purple Mountain Press”, and I thought, ‘oh, if we ever live here, maybe I could work there,’ which is really funny, because now I do work there.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.