HELLO!
I’m Casey Barber, and I’m here to have fun.

No, really!

I believe that fun is something to take very seriously, and our lives are best lived when we let magic show up every day. 

So I choose to have fun with everything I do, and I do a lot of things.

I call myself a storyteller, artist, and creative strategist — but really, I think it’s a silly societal “should” to try and define ourselves by only one or even a few terms.

There’s so much out there that makes me happy and contributes to my life as an adventurous fun-seeking missile . . . who also happens to vibe on the little details of problem-solving.

As E.B. White said:

“I get up every morning determined both to change the world and to have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning the day difficult.”

OK, it’s kind of a long story…

Through my background in journalism and visual art, I’ve told stories in all kinds of ways.

I have melded my nerd-level enthusiasm and organizational skills to help me live my creative dreams, including publishing two cookbooks and running Good Food Stories, my long-standing, critically-acclaimed food site.

I’ve worked in media for the past 20 years and food media specifically for more than half of that, contributing to a wide range of outlets as a features writer, recipe developer, photographer, and illustrator.

As an artist-in-residence at Acadia National Park, I produced Maine Ingredients, a collection of illustrated essays and recipes inspired by the park and its surrounding region.

My NYC food lettering design was also selected for the 2020 Rockefeller Center Flag Project and produced as a flag flown in the iconic plaza.

I believe in the “what if?” and “why not?” of everyday adventure.

I’m an experimenter, a try-it-and-see kind of gal. There’s inspiration all around us, and I love seeing where the winding road takes me (both metaphorically and literally).

Don’t get me wrong, I love love love the process of planning a trip — see below. But some of the greatest experiences in my life have come from a spontaneous hooky day. They happen when I’m sliding into a roadside diner booth after a long drive into New Mexico or talking with the person behind the counter at the antique store where I finally found the last record to complete my Steely Dan vinyl collection.

Sure, I’ve had some pretty fancy encounters along the way, and if you ask, I’ll tell you wild stories about all the celebrities I met during my years in the PR trenches. But the best moments don’t necessarily come with status or price tags.

I believe the best plans and systems allow room for possibilities to unfold.

It might sound counterintuitive to my freely expressive, “it’s the journey, not the destination!” vibe. But the key to my freedom is my strong foundation of basic systems and strategies that support me on this life journey.

Through trial and error, I’ve found practical solutions and reliable routines that work for ME and let the fun flow more easily. Because you know what’s not fun? Forgetting to book the catsitter before you go off on a road trip.

So when my day-to-day duties can work on auto-pilot (usually through Notion, my favorite brain storage system), I have way more space to dream, explore, and create.

Creativity + Organization; That’s my zone of genius!

(For more on this, feel free to read my business manifesto.)

Let’s have a good time together!

Subscribe to my FREE semi-weekly newsletter:
A Good Time with Casey Barber

You’ll get dispatches on my everyday adventures, musings on my life as a working creative, ways that you can bring a little more fun into your life, and project announcements. And a few ukulele videos thrown in too.