Writer and baritone/tenor saxophonist Barbara Gillies lives in Chicago with a longhaired night owl and a pack of unruly welfare wolves.

 

Barbara began playing music professionally in 1980. Bands she has recorded and performed with include American Taboo, Malukosamba, Hidden Colors, Smokin' Section, and her current band, The Hightones. In addition, she works as part of the Housosax Horns with blues tenor sax legend, Rawl Hardman.

 

Novels she has written and published include Click-Click, The Other Side of the Lake, Unbidden Refuge, The Rhythm of Solitude, Chaos and Enlightenment in the Cheese Tent, and her newest release, Rocking the Spectrum.

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In addition to playing music and writing books, she owns a small forest where she engages in shinrin-yoku, keeps bees, and grows shiitake mushrooms. She also keeps chickens in her backyard in Chicago, occasionally makes wine in her basement, and has completely useless degrees in anthropology, cultural geography, and mortuary science.

 

Future plans include writing her next book, working on new songs with both The Hightones and Rawl Hardman and The Welfare Wolves, finally installing the solar panels at the off-grid shack, and eventually bottling that big carboy of Cabernet that’s still sitting in the corner of the basement.