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About Barbara
I’m Barbara Falconer Newhall and I’ve got a serious case of the human condition.
I’ve done it all: career, family, house, garden, and a prize-winning book, "Wrestling with God." The result: I'm a woman of years, lots of them, who can't help seeing things from the funny side.
Tucked away on this website are hundreds of riffs on life. I hope you’ll seek them out – and keep me company as I discover the humor, if not the meaning, in what life throws my way. Learn More
THE LATEST
Am I an Artist? Or Am I a Brand?
What kind of writer am I anyway? When I sit down to the keyboard, is it to write something beautiful — or something that will sell? Am I an artist? Or am I a brand? Read more.
BARBARA’S BOOK
★ Publishers Weekly, starred review
Any seeker of any faith will be blessed to read the words of this fine author and observer. Read more.
An inveterate doubter for most of her adult life, journalist Barbara Falconer Newhall embarks upon a quest to find a way to believe in God in the twenty-first century.
The result is Wrestling with God: Stories of Doubt and Faith, which details her search for the Divine in the lives of diverse Americans – from a fundamentalist Christian to a progressive Muslim to a Buddhist monk.Seekers of all persuasions will feel represented here, from priests, ministers, and rabbis to engineers, physicists, and avowed non-believers . . . a riverflow of a book. — Phil Cousineau, host of PBS’s Global Spirit
Recent Riffs on Life
Widowed: My Husband’s Stuff Is Still Here. I’ve Got My Reasons
Marriage is mostly about presence, about being there. Jon’s not here anymore. But his belongings are. Read more.
Huston Smith on the Most Important Thing You Can Do in 2025
After nearly a century devoted to the study of life and truth and the meaning of it all, religion scholar Huston Smith had some advice for his fans. Read more.
DON’T MISS!
The Shame of Aging: The Big Seven-Five Has Finally Arrived
It’s here. My birthday. The Big Seven-Five. I’m now officially old. But I don’t wear my trousers rolled. Read more.
A Case of the Human Condition: He Never Called Me Back . . . Why?
The book’s cover was fuchsia, its title blunt: “Why He Didn’t Call You Back.” Just what I needed years ago when I was young and single and wondering why so many guys would take me out once or twice — then disappear without explanation. Gone. Evaporated. Poof. Read more.
I Said Hello to My Deceased Husband — Finally
I said hello to my deceased husband’s photo the other day — and for once I did not collapse into tears at the sight of his face. Read more.