About Dawn
Dawn Baldwin Barrett grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, where she spent summers working at her parents’ hazardous waste recycling facility, the first such facility permitted in the state. She began publishing poems and short stories at age 13. At Georgetown University, she was a feature writer for The Hoya. She worked as a journalist covering the Memphis Beale Street music scene and interviewed performers including BB King, ZZ Top and U2. Dawn’s coverage of U2’s recording sessions at world-renowned Sun Studio opens the band’s 1989 book, Rattle and Hum.
In the mid-80’s she co-founded Wimmer Baldwin Associates, Inc., a safety and environmental compliance consulting firm. Her widely-published writing about employee training program design attracted the attention of textbook publisher Van Nostrand Rheinhold (now John Wiley & Sons) which commissioned Dawn to write Safety and Environmental Training: Using Compliance to Improve Your Company. The text was published in 1992.
Dawn wrote the "Environmental, Health and Safety Plan" for AutoNation, a Fortune 500 car dealership conglomerate. For other clients, including Goodyear Tire & Rubber and CZ Inks, Dawn developed a variety of compliance programs, including Facility Response Plans, Spill Prevention Control and Countermeasures Plans, Job Safety Analyses, and Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response Plans. She wrote and produced a training video for car and truck dealerships, "HazCom Plus 4," which sold nationwide for more than a decade. She was certified as a Master-Level Safety Instructor by the World Safety Organization, a division of the World Health Organization. Dawn conducted her unique “Training by Design” seminars for safety and environmental managers at industry conferences across the country.
In 1991, Dawn married Dr. Milton Barrett, II. Their son Jake was born in 1995. After visiting West Virginia for nearly a decade, in 1997 they purchased land in Pocahontas County, near Top of Allegheny. Building an off-grid home more than a 12-hour drive from Memphis presented an incredible array of challenges, and a very steep learning curve! The house was under-roof by 2001. Brightside Acres was a reality.
After years looking for a radiology position closer to Brightside, Milton was hired in 2006 as staff Radiologist at the Greenbrier Clinic in White Sulphur Springs, WV. Dawn resigned from Wimmer Baldwin Associates. The family moved to Lewisburg that summer.
Dawn divides her time between Brightside, which she incorporated in 2008, and Lewisburg. In addition to running the ever-expanding operations at Brightside, she has returned to her first love, creative writing. She is a regular contributor to The Mountain Messenger. In June, 2009, her historical novel, The Corner Cupboard, about four generations of women who lived on Top of Allegheny, received first place in the book-length manuscript category of the West Virginia Writer’s Annual Writing Competition. Her contemporary novel, Angelus, received second place in the same category. Her short story, Resurrection, received first place. And her essay, Apples, received first place in non-fiction.
Resurrection was also awarded the 2009 Westmoreland Award for Short Story. It was a finalist in Open Thread’s 2009 Tri-State Chapbook Contest.
Two chapters from The Corner Cupboard were awarded Honorable Mentions in the 2009 Writers-Editors Network International Writing Competition.
Communion, excerpted from her non-fiction book of the same name, received Honorable Mention in the Inspirational Writing Category of the 78th Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition.
Dawn is actively seeking a literary agent.
Click here to read an excerpt from The Corner Cupboard, set in Margaret Arbogast Yeager's home at Camp Allegheny.
September 1861