Updated Author Bio

Biography for Barbara L. Sellers

Barbara Sellers was the sixth born in a family of 14 children. She grew up on a large farm in Minnesota.

During high school, Barbara unwittingly developed strong writing skills by corresponding with a Japanese pen pal. Knowing her pen pal had to interpret her letters into a foreign language forced her to pay attention to correct spelling and better sentence structure. After graduating, Barbara moved to St. Paul, Minn., where she worked as a secretary for a few years before moving to Tacoma, Wash., to escape cold weather.

During her 12-year marriage to a Tacoma native, Barbara lived near several U.S. Navy ports on the East Coast. As a single parent, Barbara earned a bachelor’s degree in English-writing (journalism) in May 1982 from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, where she now resides.

Barbara retired in May 2009 from the Department of Defense, where she worked for an Army newspaper, the Northwest Guardian, as a reporter, editor, and photojournalist in the public affairs office. While there, she wrote more than 4,000 stories and won 32 individual and staff journalism awards, including the coveted Thomas Jefferson Award twice, for best newspaper out of more than 6,000 in all four branches of the military.

Barbara is a 30-year member of Toastmasters International and has won many humorous speech contests. After retirement, Barbara started writing her first book Get Tough or Die: Why I Forgave My Parents for My Abusive Childhood, which is now available on Amazon, Barnes & Nobles, all major book stores and the DealDash.com penny-auction shopping site.

So far, Barbara has been interviewed on three radio shows and did one podcast: Preferred Radio Company with Fran Holinda, July 25; Naturally Saavy Media’s Radio Show with Andrea Donsky; I Choose My Best Life Podcast with Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith, Sept. 11; The Donna Seebo Show from Lakewood, WA, Oct. 2; and The Life Transformation Radio Show with Sean Douglas, Oct. 30.

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