Barrie Cole is a Chicago-based playwright, poet, essayist, and instructor. During her 30-year career, Barrie has amassed a catalog of more than a dozen plays, hybrid works, poems, and monologues, many of which have been produced or performed throughout the Chicago area and elsewhere.
Barrie’s work is observational, imaginative, and surprising. She makes work that revels in the power, sounds, rhythms, and magic of language. As Justin Hayford of the Chicago Reader puts it, “Barrie Cole has long been placing imaginary jars atop imaginary hills. Her ambiguously concrete work layers childlike simplicity over seasoned melancholy to produce piercing, wondrous images of charming, discomfiting transformation.” To experience her work or attend her workshops can be a sublime, revelatory, and occasionally hilarious experience.
In 2026, Barrie will add to her extensive collection of plays with the publication of her first book, Lacquer is a Thrilling Word, which includes unconventional, yet thoughtful, literary forms such as fortune cookie fortunes and drive-thru orders. Readers can expect to find pleasure in the mundane and ridiculous while immersing themselves in the sublimity of language. Pre-orders begin in January.
When not busy creating her own works, Barrie has supported others as a ghost writer, and developmental editor. She has a Master’s Degree in Interdisciplinary Arts and a Master’s of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. She lives in the Edgewater Neighborhood of Chicago with her partner Avi and his dog, Miette, on Lake Michigan where she watches the sunrise most days and tries to grow corn and sunflowers on her balcony with moderate success. Her two grown children live nearby.