Story Details
Categories Fantasy
A young musician and her sister must navigate a mystical, musically tuned forest to create a melody capable of opening a portal, hoping to rescue their mother who vanished in this enigmatic world, where each tree's note holds the key to a mysterious realm.
Author Details
Barbara A. Barnett is a Philadelphia-area writer, musician, Odyssey Writing Workshop graduate, occasional orchestra librarian, coffee addict, and all-around geek. Her short stories have appeared in publications such as Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, Cast of Wonders, Weird Horror Magazine, and GigaNotoSaurus. You can find her online at babarnett.com. STORY NOTES FOR "THE PITCH PIPE FOREST" I’m a musician, so not too surprisingly, a lot of my characters are too. More specifically, I write a lot of musicians who, like Clara in this story and like me in real life, wrestle with our perfectionist side getting in the way of our feeling side when performing. I can't remember where the idea of a forest made of pitch pipes came from. Whatever the inspiration, I wasn't quite sure what to do with the idea at first, so I brainstormed it with some fellow Odyssey graduates at a summer workshop. They helped me come up with lots of fantastic possibilities to explore, like how such a forest might affect birdsong and the idea of including a deaf character who would experience the forest differently than my protagonist with perfect pitch. Having a house that backs up to a woodsy area full of critters, including some pesky beavers, didn't hurt either when it came to looking for inspiration.
The Pitch Pipe Forest, by Barbara A. Barnett
Author Details
Barbara A. Barnett is a Philadelphia-area writer, musician, Odyssey Writing Workshop graduate, occasional orchestra librarian, coffee addict, and all-around geek. Her short stories have appeared in publications such as Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, Cast of Wonders, Weird Horror Magazine, and GigaNotoSaurus. You can find her online at babarnett.com. STORY NOTES FOR "THE PITCH PIPE FOREST" I’m a musician, so not too surprisingly, a lot of my characters are too. More specifically, I write a lot of musicians who, like Clara in this story and like me in real life, wrestle with our perfectionist side getting in the way of our feeling side when performing. I can't remember where the idea of a forest made of pitch pipes came from. Whatever the inspiration, I wasn't quite sure what to do with the idea at first, so I brainstormed it with some fellow Odyssey graduates at a summer workshop. They helped me come up with lots of fantastic possibilities to explore, like how such a forest might affect birdsong and the idea of including a deaf character who would experience the forest differently than my protagonist with perfect pitch. Having a house that backs up to a woodsy area full of critters, including some pesky beavers, didn't hurt either when it came to looking for inspiration.
