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Barbara Drake-Vera

Goodreads Author

Born

in New York City, The United States

Website

https://barbaradrakevera.com

Twitter

BarbDrakeVera

Genre

Memoir, Nonfiction, Science

Member Since

April 2024

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Born in New York City and raised in New Jersey and Massachusetts, Barbara Drake-Vera lives in Gainesville, Florida, with her husband, photographer Jorge Vera Du Bois.

Barbara is an award-winning fiction writer and journalist with credits in the Miami Herald, MSNBC, Village Voice, Orlando Sentinel, Huffington Post, Miami New Times, North Dakota Quarterly, Red Rock Review, Portland Review, New Delta Review and Iris: A Journal for Women. Her honors include a Fellowship in Fiction from the State of Florida and a fiction grant from the Miami-Dade Cultural Affairs Council. While living in Peru from 2007 to 2014, she worked as a freelance reporter and as a field producer for NBC Nightly News and the TODAY Show, assisting with coverage of environmen Born in New York City and raised in New Jersey and Massachusetts, Barbara Drake-Vera lives in Gainesville, Florida, with her husband, photographer Jorge Vera Du Bois.

Barbara is an award-winning fiction writer and journalist with credits in the Miami Herald, MSNBC, Village Voice, Orlando Sentinel, Huffington Post, Miami New Times, North Dakota Quarterly, Red Rock Review, Portland Review, New Delta Review and Iris: A Journal for Women. Her honors include a Fellowship in Fiction from the State of Florida and a fiction grant from the Miami-Dade Cultural Affairs Council. While living in Peru from 2007 to 2014, she worked as a freelance reporter and as a field producer for NBC Nightly News and the TODAY Show, assisting with coverage of environmental news and the hunt for Dutch murderer Joran van der Sloot.

There she also ran the blog An American in Lima (cited as an insider’s travel resource by National Geographic Traveler) and cofounded with Jorge the nonprofit Clima y Cultura (Climate and Culture), an NGO that raised awareness of the impacts of climate change on indigenous cultures, particularly in the high Andes.

Barbara’s debut book, Melted Away: A Memoir of Climate Change & Caregiving in Peru (LSU Press, Mar. 2024), chronicles the transformation she underwent caring for her long-estranged father with Alzheimer’s in “the land of the Incas,” as he referred to his new home. When she, Jorge and their son, Sam, returned to the United States in 2014, Barbara served as a volunteer ambassador for the Alzheimer’s Association, representing Florida District 3 as an advocate for family caregivers and their loved ones with dementia.

Her unusual eldercare journey has been featured on Health Central, Minding Our Elders and on the Fading Memories podcast.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in English from SUNY Purchase and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Florida.

For most of her life, she wrote as Barbara Drake. Since 2022, she has used the name Barbara Drake-Vera, a nod to her dual identity straddling North and South American cultures. ...more

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Barbara Drake-Vera’s books

Average rating: 4.33 · 12 ratings · 4 reviews · 1 distinct work • Similar authors

Melted Away: A Memoir of Climate Change and Caregiving in Peru

4.33 avg rating — 12 ratings — published 2024 — 2 editions

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Barbara Drake-Vera's Blog: The Meltdown: Barbara Drake-Vera's blog

Excerpt from Melted Away

Chapter 2: The Diagnosis (opening)

Pigeons

Miraflores, Lima, Peru, January 2011

It was a warm Sunday afternoon in early January—not midwinter, but summer, in Peru—when I began dreaming of blue ice again.

Jorge and I were sprawled on opposite ends of the couch, his long, tanned legs intertwined with mine, our black Lab, Lola, snoring beside us on the tiled floor, as fat gray pigeons—cuculís, in Peruvia Read more of this blog post »

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Published on July 16, 2024 14:42

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Barbara Drake-Vera rated a book it was amazing In the Orchards of Our Mothers by Arthur McMaster (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Wake up and smell the cider: Love, danger and betrayal intermingle in this suspenseful tale set in German-occupied France Its title taken from a line from poet W.H. Auden, In the Orchards of Our Mothers plunges readers inside two lesser-known worlds: ...more
Sep 26, 2024 03:11PM · like · see review
Barbara Drake-Vera rated a book really liked it The Scent of Distant Family: A Novel by sid sibo (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Who is our family? Who can we trust? And if we can’t trust or even locate our biological family, can we find the courage to ‘scent’ our way to a more meaningful family circle – human or otherwise? These are some of the questions at the heart of The S ...more
Aug 24, 2024 01:25PM · 2 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Scent of Distant Family by sid sibo. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Scent of Distant Family by sid sibo <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Barbara Drake-Vera rated a book it was amazing Mothership: A Memoir of Wonder and Crisis by Greg Wrenn (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Jul 16, 2024 01:02PM · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Mothership by Greg Wrenn. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Mothership by Greg Wrenn <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Barbara Drake-Vera rated a book it was amazing Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir by Paul Monette	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
A phenomenal read, and the seminal memoir of the early AIDS crisis. Devastating in its detail, both about the desperate search for treatments in the early 1980s and about the impact of AIDS on close relationships. The writing is exceptional as well. “S ...more
Jul 16, 2024 12:55PM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Borrowed Time by Paul Monette. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Borrowed Time by Paul Monette <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Barbara Drake-Vera and 3 other people liked sid sibo's review of Melted Away: A Memoir of Climate Change and Caregiving in Peru: "Although not, in general, a memoir reader, i was intrigued by the climate change/Peru angle, and the juxtaposition of family caregiving with planetary care kept me reading to the end. Lines like this: "Undetected, his brain grew more and more damaged" Read more of this review »
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Barbara Drake-Vera entered a giveaway The Grief Cure: Looking for the End of Loss by Cody Delistraty (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Jun 19, 2024 11:48AM · like · see giveaway · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Grief Cure by Cody Delistraty. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Grief Cure by Cody Delistraty <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Barbara Drake-Vera finished reading Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff Vandermeer (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Barbara Drake-Vera finished reading Everything That Rises: A Climate Change Memoir by Brianna Craft (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Jun 13, 2024 02:52PM · like
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May 31, 2024 04:50PM · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of We Don't Have Time for This by Brianna Craft. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — We Don't Have Time for This by Brianna Craft <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Barbara Drake-Vera is now following Kristina Lynn's reviews
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