Sam Barry is the author of the humor-inspiration book How to Play the Harmonica: and Other Life Lessons and co-authored the book Write That Book Already! The Tough Love You Need to Get Published Now with his wife, author and literary provocateur Kathi Kamen Goldmark. Together, Kathi and Sam write the Author Enablers advice column for BookPage, which offers information and encouragement to aspiring authors. Sam’s writing also appears in the anthology Exit Laughing: How Humor Takes the Sting Out of Death.

Sam is a contributing editor at Zyzzyva, the West Coast’s premier literary magazine. Additionally, he is a freelance marketing and advertising writer. For twelve years he was a marketing manager for HarperOne, a division of HarperCollins. He is also a musician who plays in and around San Francisco in the band Los Train Wreck and tours with the all-author rock band the Rock Bottom Remainders, with whom he appeared on Good Morning America and The Craig Ferguson Show. He has also been a regular performer on the national radio show West Coast Live.

A gifted music teacher, Sam has helped thousands of people discover the joy of making music on the harmonica and piano (not at the same time). In a previous life he was the co-founder of a non-profit art gallery and performance space in San Francisco’s Mission District and a Presbyterian minister in Omaha and Boston. Sam lives in San Francisco and is the proud father of two children, Daniel and Laura, and step-father of Tony Goldmark.

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