Charles Barber (born 1962) is an American author and Writer in Residence at Wesleyan University who writes narrative nonfiction books about medicine, psychiatry, and criminal justice.

After attending graduate school at Columbia University, Barber worked for ten years with the homeless mentally ill in New York City.

[2] [3] In 2005, Barber published Songs from the Black Chair: A Memoir of Mental Interiors, an account of his work with the homeless and also the story of his own experiences with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The New England Journal of Medicine compared the book to William Styron’s Darkness Visible and Sylvia Nasar’s A Beautiful Mind.

The Wall Street Journal described In the Blood as "the captivating, often cinematic story of how a medical innovation was improbably developed, fiercely resisted, and ultimately adopted".