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Barbara Falconer Newhall

Veteran journalist Barbara Falconer Newhall riffs on life as she knows it.

  • A CASE OF THE HUMAN CONDITION
  • MY EVER-CHANGING FAMILY
  • WRITING & READING
  • MY ROCKY SPIRITUAL JOURNEY
  • WIDOWED
  • FUNNY BUTTON

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About Barbara

Barbara Falconer Newhall at her home office desk getting ready to do final edits on her book, "Wrestling with God." Photo by Barbara Newhall

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

A 1970s Counterculture Bash at Zodiac News Service. Were You There?

By Barbara Falconer Newhall 9 Comments

It was a 1970s counterculture bash at Zodiac News Service. If you were there, pls help ID these party-goer pix. (Be patient. Lots of photos to upload!) 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.
"Wrestling with God: Stories of Doubt and Faith" book cover with photo of author Barbara Falconer Newhall

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

Click to learn more about "Wrestling with God"

Recent Riffs on Life

Widowed: Archiving My Husband and Zodiac, His Scrappy 1970s News Service

By Barbara Falconer Newhall 10 Comments

Zodiac-News-Service-Nov-11-12-1972

Can you archive a dead spouse? Can you stash them away in a temperature-controlled academic repository, to be preserved for centuries?  Read more.

Happy Birthday, US of A. You Made It to 250.

By Barbara Falconer Newhall 1 Comment

happy birthday us of a. 250 American-flag-flying-against-the-sky-250

Happy birthday, US of A! You made it to 250. A little the worse for wear, but still here.  Read more.

MORE RIFFS ON LIFE

CATEGORIES

  • A Case of the Human Condition

  • My Rocky Spiritual Journey

  • My Ever-Changing Family

  • On Writing & Reading

Need some levity? Push my Funny Button!

DON’T MISS!

When My Mother Was the Grandma

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

when my mother was the grandma

My mother was the grandma in the family. She deserved respect from our kids. Not because she’d earned it, but because she was the grandma.  Read more.

Atticus Finch — Meet Mother Emanuel

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

My copy of "Go Set a Watchman" on the counter of my local bookstore. Atticus Finch story. Photo by Barbara Newhall

“Go Set a Watchman” didn’t have a craft problem. It had a theme problem – in the character of a bigoted Atticus Finch. Read more.

Cathy Guisewite: I Can’t Wait to Spend Time With This Funny, Wise Lady

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

cartoonist Cathy Guisewite's new book, "Fifty Thing That Aren't My Fault," arrived in my mailbox yesterday. Can't wait to read it. Photo by Barbara Newhall

Cathy Guisewite, cartoonist and author of “Fifty Things That Aren’t My Fault,” writes the way I want to write: with humor and grace. Read more.

MORE DON'T MISS!

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True stories often told through a humorous lens–because you just can't make them up!

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LET’S CONNECT

ON THE FUNNY SIDE

The Writing Room: Heather Donahue and Me – How I Got Hooked on a Pothead

Heather Donahue's book jacket Grow Girl: How My LIfe After "The Blair Witch Project Went to Pot"

I bought Heather Donahue’s book about marijuana farming, "Grow Girl," because she’s a writer friend of a writer friend of mine. This is what happened.

MORE "ON THE FUNNY SIDE"

CATEGORIES

  • A Case of the Human Condition
  • My Ever-Changing Family
  • On Writing & Reading
  • My Rocky Spiritual Journey

 
Need some levity? Push my Funny Button!

TO MY READERS

Please feel free to share links to my posts with one and all and to quote briefly from them in your own writing, remembering, of course, to attribute the quote to me and to provide a link back to this site.

My Oakland Tribune columns, btw, are reprinted by permission of the Trib. With the exception of review copies of books, I do not accept ads or freebies of any kind. Click on the "Contact" button if you have questions. Enjoy!

 

DON’T MISS!

A grey-green Tudor bungalow in Minneapolis. Photo by Barbara Newhall

Tudor Bungalows in the Twin Cities—Little Houses With a Big Sense of Humor

The slender stalks of a dracena marginata growing too talk for their living room setting. Photo by Barbara Newhall

Help! My Dracena Marginata Has Hit the Ceiling — What Can I Do?

Armistead Maupin signs his book, "The Days of Ana Madrigal," at Book Passage, SF Ferry Building. Photo by BF Newhall

Armistead Maupin: The Man Who Wrote the Quintessential San Francisco Novel — On a Newspaper Deadline

author Barbara Falconer Newehall has stopped coloring and dying her hair so that the white hair now shows. Photo by Barbara Newhall

My Brand-New White Hair. It’s Real. It’s Scary. But I Kinda Like It

MORE DON'T MISS!

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