Barry Waldo

Follow Barry on Twitter and Instagram @barrywaldo Barry Brandon Waldo started telling himself, and his family’s brood of Labrador Retrievers, stories at a very young age in the rural countryside of Arkansas. Eventually, he found a few more people to listen to them when he got his first job at Showbiz Pizza Place, now Chuck E. Cheese, where he got paid to throw birthday parties, play video games and once a year, try his hand at playing Santa Claus. After spending a few years learning to count beans, he wrote a few short stories (aka essays) to convince some smart people to let him attend the prestigious The University of Chicago Booth School of Business where he tested his public school upbringing against his ivy league educated peers, only to discover they too still put their pants on one leg at a time. After a brief detour to The Stockholm School of Economics where he learned how to say köttbulle (meatball) in Swedish, he was granted his MBA from Chicago. He moved to Los Angeles and discovered the wonderful world of Disney, where he submerged himself into all things Lizzie McGuire, Power Rangers and, his all-time favorite, Winnie the Pooh. He loved the Pooh stories so much that to this day, he is still not sure if he is A.A. Milne reincarnated or not. Probably not. Toy land came a’calling, and when he answered, it was Barbie inviting him to Malibu to help tell some of her imaginative animated stories. Years after joining Mattel, his entrepreneurial passion eventually drew him to the dark side when he was asked if he could create something … anything… out of a simple sketch of three female monsters. He and his team crafted a freaky-just-got-fabulous world and narrative that would eventually sell a gazillion dollars of books, dolls, and merchandise. That world was Monster High, and Frankie Stein became his second fictional obsession as he worked with Little Brown to bring her to life in a series of books written by Lisi Harrison. Properly addicted to telling stories where wonderful and wacky things happen, he seemed to attract … well … wonderful and wacky partners, including two of his favorite people in the world, Shana and Ahmet Zappa. Off they went to create a new world together called Star Darlings which includes fifteen novels, music and more. The Walt Disney Company acquired what is now called Disney’s Star Darlings. Having originally been introduced to one of his idols, will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas, while trying to find a theme song for Monster High, they crossed paths again a few years later, and before he knew it, he was working with the Beats master himself in the Future. His spouse then screwed everything up by helping create a television series based on the book series Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. Ugh - these things called books just would not leave him alone! Off they went to live in the UK where the series films. One day, on a rainy train ride from London to Scotland, he met a young Scottish gent who proceeded to tell him, for four hours, about a zombie Christmas musical that he was developing as a film, and invited him to come hear the early music recordings. And you know how those strange encounters on a train go, of course, he wasn’t going to actually do it. But then he did. From that point on, Barry was forever sucked into the world that was to become Anna and the Apocalypse. So if you see a zombie milling around the streets of Los Angeles, London or Scotland that happens to sound a lot like A.A. Milne, please say hello… or cheers … or aye mate.