Barry Pearce

Barry Pearce is a Chicago-based fiction writer and professional ghostwriter who grew up on the South Side with Irish immigrant parents and six siblings, becoming the first in his family to attend college at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. He later earned an MFA in creative writing from New Mexico State University and has ghostwritten 18 nonfiction books on topics like business, real estate, and memoirs while winning awards including the Nelson Algren Award Grand Prize for his short story 'Chez, Whatever.' His linked short story collection 'The Plan of Chicago' was published in November 2025.