Charles Barber (author)

Early life, education and influences

Barber grew up in Middletown, Connecticut, as the son of economist William Barber. He attended Harvard University, where the psychiatrist and writer Robert Coles greatly influenced him.

After graduate school at Columbia University, he worked for ten years with the homeless mentally ill in New York City, in shelters at Bellevue and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, and in supportive housing programs. He later worked in Connecticut's criminal justice system, in prisons and halfway houses. Before becoming an author, he co-published scholarly works in criminal justice and psychiatry.

Writing

Barber's first book, Songs from the Black Chair (2005), is a memoir recounting his work with the homeless and his own experiences with obsessive–compulsive disorder. The New England Journal of Medicine compared it to works by William Styron and Sylvia Nasar. In 2008 he published Comfortably Numb, critiquing the overuse of psychiatric medications for everyday problems; it was a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection and called a blockbuster by Library Journal.

Citizen Outlaw (2019) follows reformed New Haven gangster William Outlaw; Barber and Outlaw appeared on The Today Show and C-SPAN's Book TV. Peace & Health (2022) covers the fifty-year history of the Community Health Center and its CEO Mark Masselli; Barber spoke nationally about it with Masselli and Senator John Hickenlooper. In the Blood (May 2023) tells how Frank Hursey and Bart Gullong developed the hemostatic dressing QuikClot; the Wall Street Journal called it captivating and cinematic.

The book was a finalist for the 2024 PEN America/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award and an Amazon Editor's Pick for Best Books of 2023 So Far.

Lectures, affiliations, and awards

Barber has given talks at universities, medical schools, and mental health groups across the U.S. and abroad. He serves as a Writer in Residence at Wesleyan University and a Lecturer in Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine, where he also runs The Perch, a mental health-focused arts journal. In 2025, he became a Literary Arts Fellow at the Montalvo Arts Center's Sally and Don Lucas Artists Program, earning a three-month residency to create new work.