Neither philosopher nor willing traveler, Barb the Brief is our movie reviewer. Not being a philosopher or a traveler can almost be tolerated in a Philosophers on Holiday 'zine, but a movie reviewer who doesn't go to movies very often is stretching things a bit even for us. She is, however, dedicated to her craft and in dire need of "brevity" lessons.

In normal life she is a long-time IBMer - a Software Engineer doing technical support for supercomputers where she is never known for brevity and always known for "not traveling." She's sole proprietor of the "just ask barb" search engine - known to her professional colleagues as someone who might not know an answer herself but does know who knows. When you don't know the answer to a knotty question, "just ask barb." She never makes up the answer and she has a huge archive filling up her hard disk! "The Brief" lives in the Hudson Valley, New York with her partner Jay. They have no cats.