O.J. Barré hails from the lushly forested, red-clay hills near Atlanta, Georgia. From birth, O.J. was a force of nature. Barefoot and freckled, headstrong and gifted; she was, and is, sensitive to a fault. Books became her refuge as a young child, allowing O.J. to escape the confines of her alcoholic home on adventures to untold places and times. Her daddy's mother was a Willoughby, making O.J. a direct descendant of William the Conqueror. Her Awen series is a love letter to that distant past.

Many of O.J.'s favorite novels are those with animal characters. In the early 2000s, Terry Brooks's Magic Kingdom for Sale/Sold leapt off the racks of her local Barnes & Noble and into her hands, changing O.J.'s life forever. With its quirky dog-scribe Abernathy and the other talking animal and earth characters, this series became one of O.J.'s favorites. Brooks's juxtaposition of a fantastical world within our day-to-day one directly influenced the creation of the Awen trilogy. O.J.'s love of meditation, natural healing, nature, and cinema can also be found in the pages of her novels.